Space Mission
Apollo 14, 31 January – 9 February 1971, EVA 1
Photographer
Alan Shepard
Photo Description
Vintage chromogenic print on matte fiber-based paper, flush-mounted on original NASA KSC card; [NASA image AS14-67-9388]
image: 11 h × 14 w in (28 × 36 cm)
card: 11½ h × 14½ w in (29 × 37 cm)
Essay
Shepard took this superb photograph to show the location to the LM for the comprehensive sample collected on the way back to the LM from the lunar science station.
NASA photo editors cropped the lower half of the Hasselblad frame to show the desolate landscape of Fra Mauro Base with the gleaming MET tracks illuminated by the harsh lunar Sun.
The Modular Equipment Transporter (MET) was a two-wheeled, hand-pulled vehicle that was used as an equipment hauling device on traverses across the lunar surface. The track made by the MET tires are compact, smooth, and, as can be seen so dramatically in this picture, more highly reflective than the rough undisturbed surface.
“The lighting’s incredible, the contrasts. It’s something you’ve never seen before. In that stark sunlight, it’s either black or it’s grey or it’s dazzling sunlight. Nothing muted about it…”
—Ed Mitchell (Chaikin, Voices, pg. 66)