Apollo 14 was the first moon mission since the near disaster of Apollo 13, and the astronauts and ground crew had an overwhelming desire to prove that space travel was still possible and that NASA could recover from the accident. On board the Command and Service Module (CSM) Kitty Hawk were Alan Shepard, America's first man in space, and Ed Mitchell and Stu Roosa, two men who had never before been outside the Earth's atmosphere. These men rode the most powerful rocket ever built, the Saturn V, into Earth orbit and beyond on January 31, 1971. The mission launched from Pad 39-A on Merritt Island, Florida, the same pad complex where Space Shuttle launches occur today.
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Last updated 9 March 2004.
All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless
otherwise noted
Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.