One Second to Panic
Sketch completed 8 March 2003
Drawing Copyright by Ulrich Lotzmann. All rights reserved.
Click on the image for a larger version.
After John Young and Charlie Duke got back to the LM at the end of Apollo 16 EVA-3, John got playful and started jumping up and down.
170:21:44 Young: We were gonna do a bunch of exercises that we had made up as the Lunar Olympics to show you what a guy could do on the Moon with a backpack on, but...Charlie later wrote: "I decided to join in and made a big push off the moon, getting about four feet high." 170:22:08 Duke: About 4 feet. Wow!"But as I straightened up, the weight of my backpack pulled me over backward. Now I was coming down on my back. I tried to correct myself but couldn't, and as my heart filled with fear I fell the four feet, hitting hard - right on my backpack. Panic! The thought that I'd die raced across my mind." 170:22:12 Duke: That ain't any fun, is it?"It was the only time in our whole lunar stay that I had a real moment of panic and thought I had killed myself. The suit and backpack weren't designed to support a four-foot fall. Had the backpack broken or the suit split open, I would have lost all my air. A rapid decompression, or as one friend called it, a high-altitude hiss-out, and I would have been dead instantly! Fortunately, everything held together...I was pretty subdued the rest of the EVA." Adapted from Moonwalker by Charlie and Dotty Duke, Oliver-Nelson Books, Nashville, 1990. |
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