Kitty Hawk waited in lunar orbit while two of its crew went down.
In February 1971, Apollo 14’s command module carried Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell on the third landing. Shepard and Mitchell descended in Antares. Roosa stayed alone aboard Kitty Hawk and circled the Moon 34 times, keeping watch on his crewmates and on Earth hanging in the black.
The flight mattered beyond the landing itself. Apollo 13 had nearly ended in disaster; Apollo 14 was the comeback that showed the program could still fly safely. On the surface, Shepard and Mitchell collected rocks, set out instruments to listen for moonquakes, and mapped a landscape that later crews would cross for longer. Shepard also became the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon, swinging a makeshift six-iron in one-sixth gravity.
Resilience in orbit, science on the ground, and one quiet pilot holding the ship that would bring them home.
Image credit: NASA