HOUSTON: Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Edgar D. Mitchel made a bull’s eye landing in the moon’s rugged highlands today [Feb 5] after outwitting a computer failure that threatened their mission at the last minute. History’s third pair of lunar explorers carried man’s quest for knowledge to that alien soil in that ferry Antares, which touched down at 0918 GMT ... in the dust surface of the Fra Mauro region.

Later, Shepard and Mitchel walked on the moon’s surface, starting the first of two sorties the two astronauts are to make exploring the Fra Mauro highlands during their scheduled 33 hours 30 minutes on the moon.

... In their first three-quarters of an hour on the lunar surface, Mitchel and Shepard carried out most of their preliminary tasks, planted the Ame­r­ican flag, took some photographs and began to gather the section of the scientific station ALSEP.... In Panoramic views shown by the colour television camera, the horizon of the barren “end of the world” scene was much more uneven than Apollo-11’s telecast has shown. … An hour after stepping on the moon, Shepard and Mitchel received a message from President Nixon congratulating them on their success.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2021