Al Worden spent three days alone orbiting our lifeless neighbor while his two crewmates explored an area of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains), 28 degrees north of the lunar equator, on the surface below. The name of the Apollo cmmand module he piloted during that time was of course Endeavour, in honor of their aforementioned fellow explorer who had sailed very different seas in a time long before Saturn V rockets and lunar modules.
Growing up in 1930s America, Worden could never have imagined the paths he would take, and the places he would see, in his own lifetime. “There wasn’t such a thing as an astronaut when I was a kid. There were television shows that had ‘spacey’ type themes like ‘Buck Rogers,’ but that was it,” he recalled. Worden earned a scholarship to Princeton University, but a scholastic records check found he hadn’t studied Latin and so that opportunity was taken away from him.
On the return trip to Earth, Worden himself completed an historic first spacewalk in deep space. During his 38 minutes outside Endeavour, he retrieved film cassettes from the SIM bay and observed the general condition of equipment situated there. As the first person to view the Earth and the Moon from deep space outside a spacecraft, it was a personal mission highlight for Worden. “I’d watched the Earthrise 75 times before that so that was an old thing by then, but to see the Earth and the Moon at the same time like that was kind of unique.” Full Story»