A false alarm, an unreached crater, and golf on the Moon

Shortly before the planned landing burn, Antares’s computer began receiving a false mission-abort signal — likely from a loose bead of solder inside a faulty switch. A team at MIT hastily devised a workaround, which Mitchell had to manually program in just minutes before ignition.

The landing radar also refused to lock onto the surface automatically, so the crew flew briefly without critical altitude and descent-rate data — the signal was restored just before the point at which the rules would have required an abort. Shepard ultimately landed closer to the planned target than any of the six Apollo landings.

On the second moonwalk, Shepard and Mitchell headed for the rim of Cone crater, but undulating terrain and missing landmarks confused them — exhausted and running low on time, they had to turn back less than 30 metres from the goal, as later Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images showed. Back at the module, Shepard pulled out a golf club head he had attached to a sample-tool handle and, one-handed, hit two balls — the second, he said, went “miles and miles and miles” in the weak lunar gravity.