Duct tape saves the day on the Moon

By William Atkins
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 02:24

Opinion and Analysis

The date was December 11, 1972. NASA Apollo astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt had landed on the Moon. Lucky for them a roll of good old-fashion duct tape was onboard after damaging their lunar rover.


The two moon walkers had landed their lunar module (LM-12), nicknamed Challenger, on the southeastern rim of the Mare Serenitatis, in the southwestern Montes Taurus.

The area was named the Taurus-Littrow region. It contained boulders, mountains, several impact craters, and a landslide—plenty of interesting landscape to explore.

Command module pilot, Ron Evans, was circling above them in the spacecraft America.

Cernan and Schmitt would explore the Moon on three separate excursions in their lunar rover (“moonbuggy”)—for 7.2, 7.6, and 7.3 hours—for a total of 21 miles (34 kilometers).

In all, the mission would return to Earth 243.6 pounds (110.5 kilogrmas) of samples from the Moon.

However, before Cernan and Schmitt even got started on their journeys across the lunar landscape, an accident happened.

Please read the April 21, 2008 NASA article “Moondust and Duct Tape” about how one broken fender and a roll of duct tape became two key items in the adventures of Cernan and Schmitt on the lunar surface.