HOUSTON: The Apollo-14 moon voyagers made a perfect splashdown in the Pacific today (Feb 9) at 0200 WPST after man’s third Lunar exploration that mission commander Alan Shepard labelled “a smashing success”. With 96 lbs. of moon soil and rocks stowed away ... and possibly the most precise and accurate photographs of the Lunar terrain yet obtained, Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa had only one major hurdle to overcome before reaching home.

In common with every other spaceman before them they had to guide their space cabin through the earth’s heavy blanket of air with pinpoint accuracy to drop gently into the swells of the mid Pacific near the international dateline south of Samoa … After jettisoning their service module containing their main rocket engine as they near the earth, the Apollo crew must hit the atmosphere with blunt end of their cabin at the right altitude to avert either being fired cinder or skipping like a pebble into space and inevitable death. …Shepard removed any last lingering doubts about the success of the mission when he and his crew held a 25 minute televised Press conference from their spacecraft last night. “I feel Apollo-14 has been a resounding success,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2021