Apollo 17 off to Moon after initial delay

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 1

Apollo 17 off to Moon after initial delay

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) CAPE KENNEDY (Florida), December 7. Apollo 17 blasted off for the Moon at 12.33 a.m. today after lift-off was delayed for about two hours and a half because of technical troubles.

The thundering Saturn 5 rocket thrust two United States Navy men, Captain Eugene Cernan and Commander Ronald Evans, and a geologist, Dr Harrison Schmitt, on a scientific expedition to fill in missing chapters of Moon history.

Hundreds of thousands of people jammed viewing sites in the Cape Kennedy area to bid farewell to Apollo 17 and to watch the blazing departure in the first afterdark launching of an American manned space flight. Despite the delay in launch, Apollo 17 went smoothly into Earth orbit To reach the Moon, the spacecraft orbited Earth twice in slightly more than three hours. Another rocket then hurst from the Saturn s’s third stage to send the spacemen towards the Moon. ... Mission control said that the tardy launch would not affect the December 11 arrival time at the Moon. The

lost time was made up by making a more powerful rocket tMrust when the spacecraft blasted out of Earth’s orbit. v Cause of delay

Experts determined that a computer, which controlled the countdown was not able to accept the fact that the third-stage oxygen tank was being pressurised manually,

instead of automatically, as planned. In effect, the experts worked out a new programme which told the computer to accept the manual pressurisation. After more than an hour of testing, technicians determined that the new technique would perform satisfactorily. The launch spectators were rewarded for their long wait by the most dazzling lift-off in the history of the Cape Kennedy spaceport, where more than 3000 rockets have been fired in 22 years. The Saturn 5 flashed to life with the brilliance of the sun and sent a cascade of flame rushing like a waterfall over its launching pedestal. New Zealand girl A 16-year-old New Zealand girl who saw the blastoff from a V.I.P. section three miles away from the launch site, said the sight was almost unbelievable. “I am very envious,” said Miss Bridget Allan, who was

Wives of the Apollo 17 astronauts, Eugene Ceman (foreground) and Ronald Evans (centre), bid good luck to their husbands as they and their fellow-astro-naut, Harrison Schmitt (rear), leave the headquarters at Cape Kennedy.

among young science students from 80 nations who viewed the spectacular launching as guests of the American Government. Miss Allan said after watching the Moon launching: “I hope to go into space someday myself.” She said she hoped the American Skylab project in which scientists would spend time in orbiting laboratories would eventually provide opportunities for women, including herself, to go into space. Dr Pickering Miss Allan, of Dunedin, gained a preliminary introduction to the space programme by staying as a guest of the New Zealand-born Dr William Pickering, who now heads the United States jet propulsion ■ laboratory in Pasadena, California, when she began her tour on December 1. A sixth form Kaikorai Valley High School science pupil, she said she had not only enjoyed the tour of the United States, so far but also the experience of travelling with students from 79 other nations.

Miss Allan, who was chosen from New Zealand’s top School Certificate science students to participate in the tour, sponsored by the

—Last night's cable photograph.

American Government, said she was still undecided on which branch of science she wanted to specialise in. Soon after Apollo 17 was guided on a path to the Moon, the command craft America separated from the third stage of the rocket that blasted it from Earth. Then America turned round slowly in space and successfully docked with the lunar landing ship Challenger. The manoeuvre was to have been televised for transmission to Earth but this was cancelled because of the delay in blast-off from Cape Kennedy. Before the docking, the astronauts reported a “snowstorm” of paint or ice flaking off the third stage of the Saturn rocket, but were uncertain what it was.

They were also checking a master alarm which was flashing warnings of a problem. But on investigation they found no problem apparently existed.