FIRST CAR ON THE MOON

摘要

WHEN APOLLO 14 landed astronauts on the moon for the third time in February 1971, it was met with a week-long yawn by the press and the public. The TV networks carried live coverage of the launch and paid some mind to the long translunar coast, where misfortune had called on Apollo 13, but offered only occasional snippets of Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell's time on the lunar surface. News from Fra Mauro was dutifully passed along by the country's newspapers, but with palpable lack of enthusiasm. America had grown jaded about moon missions, it seemed. But fact was, the second and third lunar landings made for lousy TV. To viewers, they looked pretty much the same as Apollo 11: The astronauts were on foot. The TV camera was stationary and positioned near the lun175 ar module. Its low-resolution footage captured the crew bouncing around base camp, doing nothing especially stirring. In fact, Apollo 14's single made-for-TV moment is the only thing many older Americans remember about it: Alan Shepard's golf shot that went for "miles and miles" in the weak lunar gravity.