Space History: Apollo 15 July 30

These guys were terrific! Apollo 15 (David Scott, Jim Irwin, and Al Worden) set a bunch of records for crewed spaceflight. With the addition of the new Lunar Rover, they hauled the heaviest payload in a lunar orbit of approximately 107,000 pounds.

The rover allowed them to travel 17.5 miles across the lunar surface. They spent over 18 hours walking on the surface in three different extravehiculr activities (EVAs).

They were the first crew to place a satellite orbit by a crewed spacecraft, and Al Worden was the firs human to perform a deep space and operational EVA.

From NASA:

"David Scott and James Irwin flew their LM to a perfect landing at 6:16 p.m. EDT July 30, at Hadley Rille about 1,500 feet north and east of the targeted landing point near a crater named Salyut. Landing approach over the Apennine Range - one of the highest on the moon - was at an angle of 26 degrees, the steepest approach yet used in Apollo missions. During three periods of extravehicular activity, or EVA, on July 31, and Aug. 1 and 2, Scott and Irwin completed a record 18 hours, 37 minutes of exploration, traveled 17.5 miles in the first car that humans have ever driven on the moon, collected more than 170 pounds of lunar samples, set up the ALSEP array, obtained a core sample from about 10 feet beneath the lunar surface, and provided extensive oral descriptions and photographic documentation of geologic features in the vicinity of the landing site during the three days (66 hours, 55 minutes) on the lunar surface."

The whole video library for this awesome mission is here: 

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/video15.html

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