Edgar Mitchell, the sixth moonwalker
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, has died. He passed away last Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing.
Mitchell and Alan Shephard Jr. touched down on the moon on February 5 1971. The pair were assigned to traverse the lunar surface to deploy scientific instruments and perform a communications test on the surface, as well as photograph the lunar surface and any deep space phenomena.
During a 1997 interview for NASA’s oral history program, Mitchell said: “To me, that (spaceflight) was the culmination of my being, and what can I learn from this? What is it we are learning? That’s important, because I think what we’re trying to do is discover ourselves and our place in the cosmos, and we don’t know. We’re still looking for that.”
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