Alan Shepard taking his first steps on the Moon at Fra Mauro

Space Mission
Apollo 14, 31 January – 9 February 1971, EVA 1

Photographer
Edgar Mitchell

Photo Description
Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA HQ caption on the verso

Essay
While Stuart Roosa remained aloft in lunar orbit, Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell touched down on the Moon in the hilly Fra Mauro region, previously planned as the landing site for Apollo 13.
Mitchell took the photograph from his LMP window after Shepard descended the LM ladder to walk on the Moon. Shepard is lowering his gold-plated outer visor against the glare of the lunar Sun, looking up toward Cone Crater.

This is the only photograph taken during the Apollo missions showing an astronaut on the lunar surface as seen from the window of the spacecraft.

From the mission transcript as Alan Shepard took his first steps on the Moon
(photograph taken at T+ 113:52:32 after launch):
113:50:52 McCandless (Mission Control):Beautiful! We can see you coming down the ladder right now. It looks like you’re about on the bottom step. (Pause) And on the surface. Not bad for an old man.
113:51:26 Shepard:Okay, you’re right. (referring to himself in the third person) Al is on the surface. And it’s been a long way, but we’re here. (Pause) Well, I can see the reason we have a tilt is because we landed on a slope. The landing gear struts appear to be about evenly depressed. […]
113:52:32 Shepard:Okay, we’ll move on over. Take alook at Fra Mauro…(correcting himself) take a look at Cone Crater, I should say, which is right where it should be, and is a very impressive sight. You can see the boulders near the rim…
113:52:53 McCandless (Mission Control):Antares, this is Houston. You are Go for two-man EVA. Over.
113:53:01 Mitchell:Roger, Houston. Thank you.
113:53:06 Shepard:And, continuing, we can see the boulders on the rim. It looks as though we have a good traverse route up to the top of Cone. I can see Cone Ridge going along to the north. That’s very apparent.