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"Fallen Astronaut"
Apollo 15's journey to the moon was the most perilous mission
planned by NASA. It's destination was the Apennine region of the Moon. By
all accounts a success, it provided a rare moment of introspection for
astronauts. David Scott's final task of his
moon-walk was to
drive the Rover out a distance from the Lunar Module to a point where the TV
camera could watch the lift off. He left a small Bible on the Rover's dash
panel; and, beside the Rover, he laid a figure of a fallen astronaut and a small
plaque recording the names of all the astronauts and cosmonauts that had lost
their lives in the furtherance of space exploration. The Rover carried its own
message, 'Man's first wheels on the moon. Delivered by Falcon, July 30, 1971.'
Belgian
Artist Paul Van Hoeydonck was commissioned to created the small statuette, made of
tin, for the occasion. Smuggled aboard the lunar module without the
knowledge of NASA officials, David Scott and Jim Irwin performed a brief, yet
reverent, ceremony on the lunar surface.
The crew of Apollo 15,
in their own words:
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Mission Time - 167:41:30
[Without Houston's knowledge, Dave is preparing and photographing a
memorial to the astronauts and cosmonauts who had died in space and in other
circumstances. Dave talked about the memorial during the post-flight press
conference. Photos AS15-88- 11893
and 11894
are a stereo-pair of the memorial.]
[Jones - "It was in your post-flight press conference."]
[Scott - "That's where we told 'em about it. I was thinking I had
discussed it on the Moon, but I didn't."]
[Jones - "Tell me about it."]
[Scott - "We made a plaque for all the astronauts and cosmonauts that
had been killed. And a little figurine, a Fallen Astronaut, and we put it right
by the Rover. You can see it in the picture (AS15-88-11893).
That was just a little memorial, in alphabetical order. In relative terms, we
had both lost a lot and, interestingly enough, we didn't lose any more after
that until Challenger. That's what I was doing when I said I was cleaning up
behind the Rover (at 167:43:36).
Jim knew what I was doing. We just thought we'd recognize the guys that made the
ultimate contribution."]
[In a 2000 exchange of e-mail, Dave Scott adds "As I recall, we had the
idea for the memorial and then looked around for the manner in which it might
best be realized. The plaque was the obvious baseline. And either Al or Jim
found van Hoeydonck. I remember meeting him at least once."]
[Jones - "I'm glad you did it."]
[Scott - "We felt satisfied in doing it. Several good guys didn't get to
go."]
[Jones - "I was just checking to see if there was any notation in the
printed version of your checklist."]
[Scott - "Probably not. That's one of the things that's easy to
remember."]
[Scott - "The plaque is explained in the Apollo 15 movie
(Apollo 15: In the Mountains of the Moon), too, because they folded our
press conference into that."]
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The fourteen astronauts and cosmonauts listed on the memorial
are:
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Charles Bassett (died Feb.
1966 in an aircraft accident),
Pavel Belyayev (Jan. 1970,
disease),
Roger Chaffee (Jan. 1967, Apollo 1 fire),
Georgi Dobrovolsky (Jun.
1971 re-entry pressurization failure),
Theodore Freeman (Oct. 1964, aircraft
accident),
Yuri Gagarin (Mar. 1968, aircraft accident),
Edward Givens (Jun. 1967,
automobile accident),
Gus Grissom (Jan. 1967, Apollo 1 fire),
Vladimir Komarov
(Apr. 1967, re-entry parachute failure),
Viktor Patsayev (Jun. 1971, re-entry
pressurization failure),
Elliot See (Feb. 1966, aircraft accident),
Vladislaw
Volkov (Jun. 1971, re-entry pressurization failure),
Edward White (Jan. 1967,
Apollo 1 fire),
C.C. Williams (Oct. 1967, aircraft accident).
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Unknown at the time, two of the
original selection of 20 cosmonauts were also deceased before Apollo 15: Valentin Bondarenko,
who died during a fire during training in March of 1961, and Grigori Nelyubov,
who died in a train accident/suicide in February of 1966.
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