edgar-mitchell

68
The Way of the Explorer
hundreds of pictures, and then make a trek by foot up to the rim of Cone
Crater. We believed the summit would provide a sweeping view of the
ancient aftermath of a cataclysmic meteor impact that spewed layers of
debris over the lunar surface a billion years ago. The diameter of the rim
was more than a thousand feet across. It was this field of ejected debris
from the crater that earthbound geologists wanted us to sample in order
to find clues to the inner structure of the moon.
There is a dramatic difference between viewing a landscape from behind
a window and walking out into it yourself. By entering it and walking
among its hills and valleys you become a part of its topography, a part of its
history. When Alan opened the door to the lunar module and descended
the ladder to the dusty surface, with me following a few minutes later, I
felt we were suddenly native to this land—the only ones it ever had. The
stillness seemed to convey that the landscape itself had been patiently awaiting
our arrival for millions of years.
Though there isn’t such an emphatic sense of “down” on the moon due
to the reduced gravity, there’s no doubt that you are walking about the
surface of another world—a stunningly beautiful and foreign world. The
sheer eerieness of the view assaults the senses. The shapes and starkness of
the sun-drenched landscape are more dramatic than similar geologic forms
on Earth, which are softened by atmospheric diffusion. The glare of sunlight
relentlessly burns at the edges of shadows, and there is the startling
sense of silence in this land that has never known sound. Beyond the curvature
of glass of my helmet, inches from my face, lay an infinite vacuum.
There was work to be done before we could begin our journey. During
the first outing we would set up a thermonuclear station, which would
power many of the scientific instruments for years to come, as well as the
television station, which would transmit the progress of our journey to an
enormous audience of Earthlings more than a quarter of a million miles
away on the beautiful blue and white planet that loomed directly overhead
in the black sky. Time was always draining away. Long checklists had
to be attended to in order to assure that nothing would be missed. Our
presence here had cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars, a fact
that wasn’t lost on either of us. Each minute had to count for something.
Such thoughts came to mind as a recalcitrant fitting or a stiff fastener bled
a few more seconds from the schedule. Meanwhile, we kept our wonder in
check, or at least under our breath.
After our first “day” on the moon, we tried to sleep through the artificial
night. The lunar day consists of 28 Earth days, so dusk is almost always
a long way off. But after that first day of work, Al and I retreated to the
lunar module, where we closed the blinds and crawled into our hammocks,
which lay crosswise, one below the other. Then we attempted to sleep on
the surface of the moon.