Six Iron on the Moon

On February 5, 1971, the Apollo 14 lunar module Antares landed on the Moon, touching down in the Fra Mauro highlands. Commander Alan Shepard stepped onto the surface and became the fifth human to walk on the Moon. He was 47 years old, the oldest person to do so during the Apollo program, and a decade removed from his 1961 Mercury flight that made him the first American in space.

Apollo 14 was a pressure mission. Apollo 13 had nearly killed its crew ten months earlier, and confidence in the program was shaken. Shepard, grounded for years by an inner-ear condition called Meniere's disease, had undergone experimental surgery to fix it. He was not the obvious choice. He was the stubborn one.

The mission's scientific objective was to explore the Fra Mauro formation, the original target of Apollo 13. Shepard and lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell spent over nine hours outside the spacecraft across two EVAs, collecting 94 pounds of lunar samples and deploying scientific instruments. They attempted to reach the rim of Cone Crater but got lost navigating the hilly terrain and turned back, unknowingly stopping just 65 feet from the edge.

astronaut alan b. shepard jr., commander of apollo 14, undergoing suit-up procedures before the mission launch in february 1971. source: wikimedia commons

At the end of the second EVA, Shepard pulled out a Wilson six-iron club head he'd smuggled aboard, attached it to a sample tool handle, and hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. He famously claimed the second shot went "miles and miles and miles." Analysis of mission imagery in 2021 showed it actually traveled about 40 yards. In lunar gravity, that's still a respectable chip shot.

Apollo 14 restored confidence in the program and proved NASA could recover from near-catastrophe. Shepard went from being a grounded astronaut to hitting golf balls on the Moon. Sometimes persistence is the whole design.