USC Aiken professor remembers Apollo 16 moon landing anniversary

Apr. 21—Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and South Carolina's Charles Duke landing on the moon.

The lunar module Orion touched down on the surface of the moon at 9:23 p.m. on April 20, 1971, roughly four days, eight hours and 30 minutes after the mission launched from Cape Canaveral.

USC Aiken science professor Gary Senn watched the launch from Titusville, Fla. He said he was 11 at the time and had traveled from Connecticut with his family to watch the launch.

"I got to watch it close," Senn said. "The whole experience was just really great for sure."

Senn said his family watched the launch from atop their motorhome.

"We were up on top of it," he said. "When we saw the launch, the sound of the launch came afterwards. It actually shook the motorhome while we were on top of it and that was quite the sensation."

He said watching Apollo 16 launch was one of the things that inspired him to go into science, technology, engineering and math education. Senn called watching the launch a pivotal point in his career decisions. He added he received a good education in the schools he attended in Connecticut and grew up in front of a large field he could play in.

Senn said the Apollo 16 mission was the second moon-landing mission to feature a rover for the astronauts to use to travel on the moon. Prior to Apollo 15, astronauts were limited to the distance they could travel by walking.

"They were able to travel a larger distance because they had the rover there," Senn said.

Records indicate that Young and Duke, who became the ninth and 10th men to walk on the moon during the mission, traveled 16.6 miles in the rover during the mission.

Duke, from Lancaster, is the only South Carolina resident to walk on the moon.

The rover was left on the moon when Young and Duke returned to the command and service module after three days on the moon. Its weight accounted for nearly one-third of the lunar module's weight and takeoff would have been made complicated by the additional weight.

Senn said while Young and Duke were on the moon, Duke collected the largest moon rock to be brought to the Earth by Apollo astronauts.

Big Muley — named after Bill Muehlberger, the field geology head of the mission — weighs 26 pounds and is stored at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is estimated to be roughly 4 billion years old and from a crater near the Apollo 16 landing site.

Senn added the Apollo missions had a unifying effect on the country during the turbulent times of the 1960s and early 1970s.

"There was that Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and everybody in the country, we were all talking about it, very positive and very excited, kind of rooting for our home team," Senn said.

The Space Race began in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. After the Soviets put the first man, Yuri Gagarin, in space, President John F. Kennedy announced a goal of putting the first man on the Moon by 1970 which the U.S. achieved in 1969 when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The Soviets couldn't get their rockets to work to launch to the moon and eventually concentrated on robotic landings on Venus and Mars.

Senn added the Apollo program also led to advances into science.

Scientists used information to learn about the origin of the universe (planets were hot when they were formed), how old the moon is and that the moon once had a magnetic field.

He added that Tang was developed for the Apollo missions.

"I remember Tang," Senn said. "Tang came out of the Apollo missions. They would advertise it using little characters that supposedly lived on the moon."

He said that the commercials changed when the Apollo missions were canceled. Senn said the commercials featured the moon characters lamenting that they couldn't sell the astronauts any more Tang at their stand on the moon.

"It was a big thing," Senn said. "I used to drink a lot of Tang because it was from the mission, and it was a lot of fun."