page_title: Apollo 14
section_title: Preparation and training
hierarchical_section_title: Apollo 14 / Preparation and training
caption_attribution_description: English: Al Shepard (left) holds the scoop high enough that Ed Mitchell can take the sample without bending, something he would not be able to do easily in the pressure suit on the Moon. Note that Al is wearing a stereocamera that was under development but was never flown. Journal Contributor Markus Mehring tells us that the red dot at the top left on the back of the 16-mm camera in the right foreground is "the end of film warning light, which lights up when there are less than 6 feet of film left in the magazine." The 16-mm camera was manufactured by Mauer and their label is at the bottom left on the back of the camera. A bettery pack (DAC Power Pack) is attached to the righthand side of the camera. Mehring notes, "The white cable below is the connector cable providing the DAC with power from the batteries. The DAC didn't have internal batteries, it always drew its power via a cable from the spacecraft circuits. And during mobile EVA usage, they of course didn't have that available, so they came up with this battery solution."
context_page_description: Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions," targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks.
  The mission was originally scheduled for 1970, but was postponed because of the investigation following the abort of Apollo 13 and the need for modifications to the spacecraft as a result. Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on Sunday, January 31, 1971, at 4:03:02 p.m. EST. Liftoff was delayed forty minutes and two seconds, due to launch site weather restrictions, the first such delay for an Apollo mission. En route to the lunar landing, the crew overcame a series of malfunctions that might have resulted in a second consecutive aborted mission, and possibly, the premature end of the Apollo program.
  Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro highlands – originally the target of Apollo 13.
context_section_description: Prime and backup crews for both Apollo 13 and 14 were announced on August 6, 1969. Apollo 14 was scheduled for July 1970, but in January of that year, due to budget cuts that saw the cancellation of Apollo 20, NASA decided there would be two Apollo missions per year with 1970 to see Apollo 13 in April and Apollo 14 likely in October or November.
  The investigation into the accident which caused an abort of Apollo 13 delayed Apollo 14. On May 7, 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine announced that Apollo 14 would launch no earlier than December 3, and the landing would be close to the site targeted by Apollo 13. The Apollo 14 astronauts continued their training. On June 30, 1970, following the release of the accident report and a NASA review of what changes to the spacecraft would be necessary, NASA announced that the launch would slip to no earlier than January 31, 1971.
  The crew of Apollo 14 trained together for 19 months after assignment to the mission, longer than any other Apollo crew to that point. In addition to the normal training workload, they had to supervise the changes to the command and service module (CSM) made as a result of the Apollo 13 investigation, much of which was delegated by Shepard to Roosa. Mitchell later stated, "We realized that if our mission failed—if we had to turn back—that was probably the end of the Apollo program. There was no way NASA could stand two failures in a row. We figured there was a heavy mantle on our shoulders to make sure we got it right."
  Before the abort of the Apollo 13 mission, the plan was to have Apollo 14 land near Littrow crater, in Mare Serenitatis, where there are features that were thought to be volcanic. After Apollo 13 returned, it was decided that its landing site, near Cone crater in the Fra Mauro formation, was scientifically more important than Littrow. The Fra Mauro formation is composed of ejecta from the impact event that formed Mare Imbrium, and scientists hoped for samples that originated deep under the Moon's surface. Cone crater was the result of a young, deep impact, and large enough to have torn through whatever debris was deposited since the Imbrium Event, which geologists hoped to be able to date. Landing at Fra Mauro would also allow orbital photography of another candidate landing site, the Descartes Highlands, which became the landing site for Apollo 16. Although Littrow went unvisited, a nearby area, Taurus-Littrow, was the landing site for Apollo 17. Apollo 14's landing site was located slightly closer to Cone crater than the point designated for Apollo 13.
  The change in landing site from Littrow to Fra Mauro affected the geological training for Apollo 14. Before the switch, the astronauts had been taken to volcanic sites on Earth; afterwards, they visited crater sites, such as the Ries Crater in West Germany and an artificial crater field created for astronaut training in Arizona's Verde Valley. The effectiveness of the training was limited by a lack of enthusiasm shown by Shepard, which set the tone for Mitchell. Harrison Schmitt suggested that the commander had other things on his mind, such as overcoming a ten-year absence from spaceflight and ensuring a successful mission after the near-disaster of Apollo 13.
  Roosa undertook training for his period alone in lunar orbit, when he would make observations of the Moon and take photographs. He had been impressed by the training given to Apollo 13 prime crew CMP Mattingly by geologist Farouk El-Baz and got El-Baz to agree to undertake his training. The two men pored over lunar maps depicting the areas the CSM would pass over. When Shepard and Mitchell were on their geology field trips, Roosa would be overhead in an airplane taking photographs of the site and making observations. El-Baz had Roosa make observations while flying his T-38 jet at a speed and altitude to simulate the speed at which the lunar surface would pass below the CSM.
  Another issue that had marked Apollo 13 was the last-minute change of crew due to exposure to communicable disease. To prevent another such occurrence, for Ap
caption: Shepard (left) and Mitchell during geological training
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