“There are things that people just don’t see, even though the information is out there for anybody to access,” said Armstrong.
“Officially, Apollo 13 was supposed to land on the Fra Mauro area of the Moon, and the members of its original crew were Shepard, Mitchell and Roosa. That crew was switched with the original Apollo 14 one. Allegedly, NASA wanted to give Shepard, who had been grounded since being diagnosed with Ménière’s disease in 1964, and his rookie crew more time to train. But the truth is that they were switched because the Apollo 13 mission had been redefined and Apollo 14 was to be, secretly, the real first landing on the Moon.
“Think about it! Shepard’s crew is bumped from Apollo 13 to Apollo 14, but their landing site stays the same. Apollo 14’s original landing site in the Littrow region of the Sea of Serenity was not switched to Apollo 13 together with the crew that had been training for it. Obviously, Apollo 13 was never meant to land on the Moon.”
“That was reserved for the Kitty Hawk mission,” said Lucas.
The old astronaut smiled at the Kitty Hawk reference. The name he had chosen for his fantasy baseball league team. The very thing that had started all this adventure.
“The Kitty Hawk mission, that’s right,” said Armstrong. “The name of the command module tells you that it was meant to be the first to accomplish something very special. Just like the Wright Brothers flyer was the first airplane to fly in the United States.
“It’s always been a burden to be recognized as the first man on the Moon when that honor belongs to someone else. Alan Shepard, the first American in space was also the first one to accomplish such an epic feat. That’s why I chose the name for my fantasy league team. Using the Kitty Hawk moniker wherever and whenever it fits, is my very personal way of tipping my hat to him and his memory.
“But Kitty Hawk wasn’t the only name with hidden symbolism in Apollo 14. Lunar module number 8, the one assigned to the mission, was christened Antares for a very interesting reason. NASA wants everyone to believe that the name referred to the star on which the LM oriented itself for lunar landings but that’s just misdirection. No pun intended.
“I never spoke to Alan about it, but I see something else in that name. The term Antares comes from anti Ares. Since Ares was the Greek god of war then anti Ares means antiwar. Remember the Apollo 11 patch design featuring an eagle carrying an olive branch to convey the idea that ‘we come in peace’? Well, Antares is just another illustration of the same message.
“Beyond that, Apollo 14’s LM hides an overlooked and curious fact. Antares’ number was LM-8. It’s interesting that the first humans to fly to the Moon did so on Apollo 8 and the first humans to land on the Moon did so on another number 8 craft. Did you know that in numerology, 8 is the number of Apollo?”
“No I did not,” said Lucas enthralled by the old astronaut’s tale.
“A fun fact, that I believe was just a coincidence,” said Armstrong. “A happy consequence of using ‘lucky’ LM-7 on unlucky Apollo 13.”
“What about Shepard’s words when he landed on the Moon? That, to me, have always been sort of a smoking gun”, said Lucas.
“Oh yes,” said Armstrong while proceeding to quote Shepard, “It’s been a long way, but we’re here. The official NASA story is that he was referring to his personal struggle with Ménière’s disease but I can tell you he was not. He was making a statement for the history books, not for his personal scrapbook. Why people never picked up on that is beyond me.”
“Maybe because by that time, landing on the Moon was a fait accompli. Nobody picked up on it because nobody was searching.”
“You’re probably right. You know, Shepard was a smart-aleck and I’m sure he said those words truly believing he would get away with it, that nobody would see through it. Same with the Coyote mission patch. You know about that, right?”
“The one done by the backup crew?”
“The one and only”, said Armstrong. “My instinct tells me that Shepard himself probably commissioned its design. Remember that he was Chief of the Astronaut Office for 8 years before the Apollo 14 mission. The other astronauts still saw him as a figure of authority. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he had used that reputation to ask a secret favor from his backup crew. The no questions asked type. The alternate mission patch featured the Roadrunner cartoon character already on the Moon as the Coyote arrives. Shepard wore it on his PLSS – his personal life support system – during Moon walks. The symbolism was straightforward; someone else would be forever credited for being first on the Moon.
“I’m sure that not being recognized as the first man on the Moon was probably behind Shepard’s idea of hitting a golf ball on the surface of the Moon. An act that positioned himself as the only man to play golf on the surface of the Moon and as time has proven, ensured that people would remember his walk up there.”
“I never thought of that. That was pretty clever of him”, said Lucas.
“Alan Shepard was a very cunning man”, said the old astronaut while looking towards the stadium’s scoreboard.
The closer closes
The Reds closer Francisco Cordero needed 23 pitches and faced four batters but managed to keep the Indians from scoring, and just like that, the game was over. Final score: Reds 6, Indians 4
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