Man Must Explore, Part 1

July 26, 1971

L-R, Apollo 15 crew:
Commander Dave Scott,
Command Module Pilot Al Worden,
Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin

For the second time in two years, Dave Scott found himself perched at the tip-top of a might Saturn V rocket. Before, he was launching on an Earth-orbital mission with goals of testing out the lunar module, though Scott himself had stayed in the command module. Now, Scott was headed to the Moon.

But he wasn't going alone; he'd actually be exploring the lunar surface with Jim Irwin, Scott's lunar module pilot. While Scott and Irwin were on the surface, Scott's command module pilot, Al Worden, would fly solo in the command module, keeping house until the lunar explorers returned and all three blasted off for the mother planet.

Their mission was Apollo 15, and this mission would go down in history as the first truly scientific study and exploration of the moon. This fact was not lost on Scott, or for that matter, the other crew members. They had named their command module Endeavour, after Captain James Cook's ship of two hundred years ago. Since Apollo 15 was manned by an all-Air Force crew, the lunar module was christened Falcon.

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Apollo 15 launch

At precisely 9:34am, that beast of a rocket came to life. 7.7 million pounds of thrust spewed out of the Saturn V, gulping 15 tons of fuel per second. Apollo 15 was "outta Dodge" in no time. Eleven and a half minutes later, Scott and his crew were enjoying weightlessness. While happy to be in space, there was no time to play tourist. Just over two hours post-launch, Apollo 15 was headed to the Moon. NASA called it TLC, for trans-lunar coast. The trip would take approximately three days.

However, this moon-ward voyage wasn't without surprises. A switch (falsely) showed that the main engine was firing. This was a great worry to everyone, as one couldn't land on the moon if one missed the moon, and hurtled off into deep space. Both crew and ground were greatly relieved when they finally found out that the switch was giving erroneous data. To fix this complex problem, the switch was isolated for the remainder of the flight. After the malfunctioning switch, Scott and Irwin found glass derbies scattered all over the lunar module cabin. This could pose a potentially life-threatening problem; the astronauts cleaned up the mess as best they could and then went on with the flight plan.

But the switch  and glass were nothing compared to the next problem: a water leak. Somehow, some pipe had broken and water was seeping into the cabin. Water leaks were deadly, because if the water got into the electrical wiring it could do some real damage. And that would mean no Moon mission. Scott, in particular, didn't like that thought. He radioed Mission Control in Houston, and after a few tries, the controllers hit upon a good solution. The astronauts used some towels to absorb the standing (floating??) water, and were also able to fix the leak. Turns out, an off-duty flight controller in his car had somehow heard about the problem, pulled over to use a telephone, and told Mission Control his procedure he had written up earlier. That's the successful procedure that Houston sent up to the astronauts!

To be continued...