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Apollo 15 Journal

 

Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones.
All rights reserved.
Last revised 8 June 2011.

 

Official Apollo 15 Crew Portrait

 

Mission Commander

Personal: Born June 6, 1932, San Antonio, Texas. Married, two children.
Education: B.S., U.S. Military Academy, 1954. M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics, and an engineer of aeronautics and astronautics degree, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962.
Spaceflights: Pilot, Gemini 8 (1966). Command module pilot, Apollo 9 (1969). Commander, Apollo 15 (1971).

Chosen with the third group of astronauts in 1963. Was pilot of Gemini 8, command module pilot of Apollo 9, backup commander of Apollo 12, and commander of Apollo 15 (seventh man to walk on the Moon). Became Special Assistant for Mission Operations for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1972, and was appointed Director, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, in April 1975. Resigned that position on October 30, 1977, to found his own company, Scott Science and Technology, Inc., Manhattan Beach, California.

In 1994/5, he served as the main technical consultant on the Ron Howard film, "Apollo 13" in 1997, served in the same capacity on the Tom Hanks/HBO series, "From the Earth to the Moon"; and in 2005, on the Tom Hanks/Imax film "Magnificent Desolation".

Lunar Module Pilot

Personal: Jim was born on March 17, 1930, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He died on August 8, 1991 of a heart attack. He and his wife, Mary, raised five children.

Education: B.S., U.S. Naval Academy, 1951. M.S. in aeronautical and instrumentation engineering, University of Michigan, 1957.

Spaceflights: Lunar module pilot, Apollo 15 (1971).

Jim was chosen with the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. He served as the backup lunar module flight pilot for Apollo 12 and as the lunar module pilot for Apollo 15 (eighth man to walk on the Moon). He retired from NASA and the Air Force in July 1972 to form and lead a religious organization, High Flight Foundation, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

His book, To Rule the Night, describes his early life, selection into the astronaut program, and his experiences on Apollo 15. Jim is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

LM Landing and Launch CapCom

Personal: Born September 17, 1930, Hereford, Texas. Married, two children (by a previous marriage).
Education: B.S. in industrial management, Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1952. B.S. in aeronautical engineering, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, 1961. Ph.D., aeronautics and astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964.
Spaceflights: Lunar module pilot, Apollo 14 (1971).

Chosen with the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. Was backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 10, lunar module pilot for Apollo 14 (sixth man to walk on the Moon), LM landing and launch CapCom on Apollo 15, and backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 16. Retired from the Navy, with the rank of Captain, and from NASA in October 1972 and founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Palo Alto, California, of which he was chairman. Was President, Edgar Mitchell Corporation (EMCO), Palm Beach, Florida from 1974 until 1978. Later became Chairman of Mitchell Communications Company in Florida. Wrote a book entitled Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science.

EVA CapCom

Joe was born June 27, 1937 in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was trained in physics at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and, as a Ph.D candidate in nuclear physics, at Yale. Allen was selected as a member of the second group of scientist-astronauts (sometimes known as the XS-11) in August 1967. He served with distinction as the Mission Scientist and EVA CapCom on Apollo 15 and contributed a great deal of subtle humor to Apollo 17 as the Goodnight CapCom. After Apollo, he served on the staff of the President's Council on International Economic Policy and, from 1975 to 1978, served as the Director of the Legislative Affairs Division at NASA headquarters. He first flew in space in November, 1982 as a member of the fifth Shuttle crew (STS-5) along with fellow Apollo alumni Vance Brand, Bob Overmyer, and Bill Lenoir. He made his second flight, the 14th Shuttle mission (STS-51A), in November 1984. During this flight, he and Dale Gardner made a pair of spacewalks to retrieve two communications satellites which, the previous year, had failed to reach geostationary orbit. Retired from NASA and became President and Chief Executive Officer of Space Industries International, Inc. in Houston, Texas.

Goodnight and Wake-up CapCom

Bob was born in New York City on December 14, 1936. He was trained as an astronomer at Amherst College and at the California Institute of Technology where he received a Ph.D. in 1962. After graduation, he joined the Astronomy Department at the University of Wisconsin where, during the 1966-67 academic year, he supervised future Journal Editor Eric Jones, then a first-year graduate student.

In August 1967, Bob was selected as a member of the second group of scientist-astronauts. He served as a CapCom for Apollo 15 and, then, for Apollo 17, as the Mission Scientist and EVA CapCom. Later, he was Program Scientist for the three Skylab missions flown in 1973 and, in 1974, received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. During the Shuttle era he flew on two Spacelab missions: STS-9 in November/December 1983 and the astronomy-oriented mission STS-35 in December 1990. Later, he served in a number of senior management posts in the Office of Space Flight at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., including positions as Deputy Associate Administrator (Operations), Director of the Spacelab Operations Program, and Director of Space Operations and Utilization. In 1997, he was selected as the Director of the NASA Management Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. He and his wife, Judy, have five children and seven grandchildren.

Wake-up CapCom

Gordon was born October 11, 1936 in Rochester, New York; and, while a classmate of Jack Schmitt's at the California Institute of Technology, trained as an engineer. He received a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1958. After graduation from the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB in 1965, Gordon was serving as a test pilot for the bomber operations division at Wright-Patterson AFB when he was selected into the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program. When that program was canceled in 1969, Fullerton and otherstransferred to NASA. Fullerton was a member of the Apollo 14 and 17 support crews, serving as the Goodnight and Wake-up CapCom on Apollo 14 and the lunar landing and lift-off CapCom on Apollo 17. Subsequently, he joined the Shuttle program and was one of four astronauts who flew Approach and Landing Tests in 1977. In March 1982, he flew as Pilot on the third Shuttle mission (STS-3) and, with Commander Jack Lousma, performed the first - and, thus far, only - Shuttle landing at White Sands, New Mexico when poor weather had closed the dry-lake runways at Edwards. In July 1985, Fullerton commanded the 19th Shuttle flight, STS-51F. In November 1986, Fullerton left the astronaut corps and joined the Research Pilot Office at the Dryden Flight Reseach Center. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1988 as a Colonel but continued at Dryden as a civilian pilot. He was still flying as a project pilot for a number of programs in January 2003.