Edgar Mitchell, 85; sixth man on moon wasn't typical astronaut . NASA
via New York Times Dr. Mitchell (left) and Alan Shepard in 1971 with
lunar rocks they collected during the Apollo 14 mission. MIAMI - Apollo
14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who became the sixth man on the moon when
he and Alan Shepard helped NASA recover from Apollo 13's "successful
failure" and later devoted his life to exploring the mind, physics, and
unexplained phenomena such as psychics and aliens, died Thursday night
in Florida. He was 85. Dr. Mitchell died at a West Palm Beach hospice
after a short illness, his daughter, Kimberly Mitchell, said. Dr.
Mitchell's passing coincides with the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 14
mission, which ran from Jan. 31-Feb. 9, 1971. Dr. Mitchell, one of only
12 humans to set foot on the moon, was not a typical strait-laced
astronaut: In later years, he said aliens visited earth and faith
healers were legit. He attempted to communicate telepathically with
friends at home during his Apollo mission. He had an "epiphany" in
space that focused him on studying consciousness, physics ,and other
mysteries. "What I experienced during that three-day trip home was
nothing short of an overwhelming sense of universal connectedness," Dr.
Mitchell wrote in his 1996 autobiography. "It occurred to me that the
molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were
manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that
burned in the heavens about me. His passion for exploration led him to
become an astronaut, and he joined NASA in 1966. He helped design and
test the lunar modules that first reached the moon in 1969 with Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Shepard, the first American in space in
1961, picked Dr. Mitchell to be on Apollo 13's three-person crew. But
they were bumped to the next mission so Shepard would have more time to
train - he had been grounded for years because of an inner ear
disorder. The delay was an unexpected benefit: Apollo 13's astronauts
were nearly killed when an oxygen tank exploded as they neared the moon
in 1970. They made it home safely, but never set foot on the moon. A
year later, Shepard, Dr. Mitchell, and Stu Roosa were the first crew to
try again amid falling support for the moon missions from President
Nixon, Congress, and the public. "Had we blown it, had it failed for
whatever reason, that would probably have been the end of the Apollo
program right there," Dr. Mitchell said in 1997. But they didn't let
that get to them: "When you're carrying that personal load, you just
don't have room to carry a national load as well. Fortunately, their
mission, the third lunar landing and Dr. Mitchell's only trip in space,
was a success. Unlike the two moon missions before them that went to
smoother areas, Shepard and Dr. Mitchell landed in a hilly region while
Roosa orbited overhead. They collected about 95 pounds of samples in
more than nine hours walking the lunar surface. They showed for the
first time that astronauts could walk long distances on the moon,
covering nearly 2 miles on their second expedition on the surface. That
proved that the crews of later missions could walk back to their
spacecraft if the buggy-like Lunar Rover broke down. Their mission was
best known to the public because Shepard became the first and only
golfer on the moon. Dr. Mitchell joked when Shepard duffed his first
shot: "You got more dirt than ball that time. Less well known was that
Dr. Mitchell made the only "javelin" throw on the moon when he tossed
an unneeded metal rod. Apollo 14 did have its share of glitches.
Shepard and Dr. Mitchell almost didn't make it to the surface because
of problems in the lunar module. First, a loose piece of metal in a
switch made an abort signal go off as they prepared to travel down to
the moon. If the descent engine had been on at the time, the module
would have automatically aborted the landing. They traced the problem's
cause by tapping on the switch with a flashlight and a pen. Computer
programmers back home wrote instructions to get around the abort
problem and Dr. Mitchell entered them with just minutes to spare.
Shepard later wrote that Dr. Mitchell remained "Mr. Unflappable" during
the scare. Once they started for the surface, though, the landing radar
wasn't working correctly. Shepard and Dr. Mitchell agreed to take the
dangerous and rule-breaking step of landing without radar, but didn't
have to when the device started working just in time. They had to give
up searching on foot for Cone Crater's rim, one of their mission's top
geological sites. They stopped because they spent too much time looking
for it and had to stick to tight schedules. When Mission Control told
them they should consider giving up, he used colorful language for an
astronaut: "Think you're finks! But it was the telepathy experiment on
the ride home that would give Dr. Mitchell more notoriety. Even before
he left, he told the Associated Press about his fascination with
psychic phenomena and extrasensory perception, and that he thought
humans weren't the only intelligent life in the universe. Those
interests almost got him removed from the mission, said Gene Cernan,
the last man to walk on the moon and backup commander for Apollo 14.
Cernan wrote in his autobiography that despite Dr. Mitchell's
impeccable skills and vast intelligence, flight crew director Deke
Slayton and Shepard were bothered with the fascination. "Ed just
wouldn't let it go, and Deke said he was uncomfortable with the
possibility that Dr. Mitchell's full attention would not be on the
mission," Cernan wrote. Dr. Mitchell claimed the experiment was a
success. He thought of certain symbols on a list and the friends on
earth tried to determine which ones. They were supposed to attempt the
experiment at certain times, but a launch delay caused them to try at
different times. He said the results were wrong about 90 percent of the
time, much more than the half that chance would suggest. He and his
friends said that meant that subconsciously they knew something was
wrong because of the delay, so they communicated incorrect symbols. But
most press reports dismissed him and some colleagues shunned him. Edgar
Dean Mitchell was born Sept. 17, 1930, in Hereford, Texas, and grew up
working on his father's cattle ranch in New Mexico. He joined the Navy
and got a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
before joining NASA. He left NASA in 1972 and founded the Institute of
Noetic Sciences, which is dedicated to exploring the mysteries of the
human mind and the universe. He also searched for ways to link the
spirituality of religion with the hard facts of science. In later
years, he claimed the US government covered up evidence that aliens had
landed here. He also tried to prove that the supposed psychic spoon
bender Uri Geller and faith healers were legit. In 2011, he became
embroiled in a legal fight with NASA over his plans to auction a 16mm
camera he had brought home from the moon mission. The camera had been
bolted to the lunar module and would have been left on the moon if Dr.
Mitchell hadn't removed it. Although Dr. Mitchell contended it was a
gift, NASA sued to stop the auction and eventually Dr. Mitchell agreed
to donate it to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
