Mission Accomplished

At 47 years of age, Shepard became the fifth and oldest person to traverse the moon’s landscape. He was joined by crewmates Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell in the Apollo Lunar Module named Antares. Roosa stayed in the crew capsule while Shepard and Mitchell took two moonwalks and collected over 100 pounds of rocks to bring back home. Some of these samples seemed troublingly similar to minerals found on Earth – a fact that certain individuals would no doubt have liked to have kept classified. And they would go on to reshape theories about the Earth’s development, billions of years ago. Photo Credit: NASA / Wikimedia Commons | {{PD-USGov}}