The Stars My Destination: Apollo 14

The public are damnably fickle. After the triumph of Apollo 11, public interest—at least as gauged by our supposed betters in the self-appointed fourth estate—waned during Apollo 12 & in the run-up to Apollo 13. The "successful failure" of Apollo 13 captivated the world, & even after the long layoff for hardware redesigns before Apollo 14, men walking on the Moon was big news again. It did not hurt that the mission's commander was America's first astronaut, Alan Shepard.

By early 1971, the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, always at the mercy of the United States Congress, was facing budget cuts & committing itself to a course that would end manned exploration of space beyond low Earth orbit (L.E.O.) for the next half century. Apollo missions started to be cancelled & the L.E.O.-only capable Space Shuttle was already under development. After Apollo 12 (November 1969), the Apollo 20 mission was cancelled so that its Saturn V could be used to launch the Skylab space station. After Apollo 13, it's landing at Fra Mauro was reassigned to Apollo 14; also, Apollo 18 & Apollo 19 were cancelled, essentially reducing the program by three flights.

The backup crew for Apollo 14 was CDR Gene Cernan, a veteran of Gemini IX-A & Apollo 10; & C.M.P. Ron Evans & L.M.P. Joe Engle, both rookies (though Engle had earned his Air Force astronauts wings as an X-15 pilot). The standard rotation at the time would mean that the backup crew for Apollo 14 would become the prime crew for Apollo 17, the last scheduled Moon landing, though as 1971 progressed 1972's two scheduled flights, Apollo 16 & Apollo 17 would themselves be imperiled. Would Gene Cernan & Joe Engle become the last two men to walk on the Moon? Stay tuned to The Secret Base to find out.

We here at The Secret Base are now back on track, having celebrated the fiftieth anniversaries of Apollo 11 (July 1969), Apollo 12 (November 1969), Apollo 13 (April 1970), & Apollo 14 (February 1971) & the fifty-first or fifty-second anniversaries of Apollo 7 (October 1968), Apollo 8 (December 1968), Apollo 9 (March 1969), & Apollo 10 (May 1969). We're looking forward to the fiftieth anniversaries of Apollo 15 (July 1971), Apollo 16 (April 1972), Apollo 17 (December 1972), Skylab 2 (May-June 1973), Skylab 3 (July-September 1973), Skylab 4 (November 1973-February 1974), & the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (July 1975).

The Wayback Machine Tour of Apollo 14
№ DCCXCVII: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 14, Part I
№ DCCXCVIII: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 14, Part II
№ DCCXCIX: The 50th Anniversary of Apollo 14, Part III