The Explorers' Club, № DCCXCVII

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 14, Part I
31 January 1971: Apollo 14 lifted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, carrying Commander Al Shepard, C.M.P. Stu Roosa, & L.M.P. Ed Mitchell aboard the Command & Service Module Kitty Hawk atop a Saturn V rocket also carrying the Lunar Module Antares; it took a record six attempts for the Kitty Hawk to dock with & extract the Antares from the S-IVB third stage, endangering the landing.

Bonus! Moonshot Songs o' the Day: Apollo 14
Michael Giacchino, "The Glory Days" from The Incredibles: Music from the Motion Picture (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY*)

&

National Aeronautics & Space Administration, "Apollo 14 Excerpt 1" from The Apollo Missions (Space Cadet Mike Papa DSKY)

Commentary: *The DSKY ("dis-kee," rhymes with whiskey) was the display & keyboard unit for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Calling myself Mike Papa DSKY instead of Mike Papa Whiskey was so obvious once I thought of it that I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. But such is inspiration.

Commentary: No two Apollo missions are more intertwined than Apollo 13 & Apollo 14. The crew of Apollo 14 were originally nominated to fly on Apollo 13, but N.A.S.A. management thought that they required more time for training & the crews swapped flights; after the post-Apollo 13 pause in the program, the trio of Shepard, Roosa, & Mitchell wound up training together longer than any other Apollo crew. At the time of launch, they were the least experienced Apollo crew: Roosa & Mitchell were rookies, & Shepard's spaceflight experience consisted of a fifteen-minute suborbital flight ten years earlier. Apollo 13 had been bound for the Fra Mauro Highlands, but never landed on the Moon; Apollo 14 took up the mission to Fra Mauro.

Semper exploro.