Full Gallop

click for larger version
Sketch completed 19 March 2003
Drawing Copyright by Ulrich Lotzmann. All rights reserved.
Click on the image for a larger version.
 
 
It is late in the first Apollo 12 EVA, Pete and Al have finished the ALSEP deployment and have paid a brief visit to Middle Crescent Crater. Now, the Flight Director wants them back at the LM for the close-out.

118:21:10 Gibson: Roger, Pete and Al. We copy. We suggest you start smoking on back there. You're 3:13 and I'd like you back there in 4 minutes.

118:21:21 Conrad: Okay. We're on our way. Let's go, Al.

This is the first opportunity that anyone has had to make a long-distance run on the Moon.

118:21:58 Conrad: What do you figure my strides are? Ten feet?

118:22:02 Bean: Oh, I'd say (that) each step you're only going about...When you're running normal, I'd say you go about 3 or 4 feet. But you could just go indefinitely at this pace.

118:22:11 Conrad: Yeah.

118:22:12 Bean: You don't get tired! Pete, if you land flat-footed and then you just push off your toes and on you go. (Pause)

[Bean - "We were loping along and it seemed like, because there was so much time between each step, that you were leaping great lengths."]

[Conrad - "Turned out it was about six feet (per stride), wasn't it?"]

[Bean - "I remember dropping back and watching Pete run. We were running together and I dropped back. 'Cause I felt like I was doing it, too, (that is, getting ten feet per stride). And then I watched him and his feet marks were really 3 or 4 feet apart, instead of this ten feet we thought between steps. So it was the gravity kind of tricking you into thinking you were really going long distance. But like Pete says, you could run forever."]

118:22:24 Conrad: (Chuckling as they run)

118:22:25 Bean: This is fun!

118:22:26 Conrad: Yeah.

After a brief stop to grab an interesting sample near the ALSEP, Pete and Al quickly get back up to speed.
118:24:35 Conrad: Boing! I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge - or something - whistling across the plain.
Pete's reference here may be to Scrooge's journey with the Ghost of Christmas Present, speeding through the air over moor and sea.

During the second EVA, Pete commented, "You know what I feel like, Al? Did you ever see those pictures of giraffes running in slow motion? That's exactly what I feel like." See Alan's painting called Were We Giraffes or Gazelles?

Thumbnails Journal Home Page