Experts Looked Closer At This 50-Year-Old Moon Footage, And One Detail Solved A Crazy Mystery

Like Neil Armstrong, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard is a hugely revered figure within American history and culture. That’s hardly surprising, though, considering that he was the first U.S. citizen to ever travel into space and that he later reached the Moon in 1971. It was during this latter mission, in fact, that he did something crazy that’s fascinated people ever since. What he did up on the Moon has been the subject of intense speculation over the decades, but now an expert has finally cleared things up.

Shepard’s trip to the Moon was part of the Apollo 14 mission, the third such operation of its kind. Together with his colleagues Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell, Shepard was tasked with making it to the Moon to explore, grab samples and conduct experiments. But that’s not all he did while he was up there.

The crew landed on the lunar surface on February 5, 1971, with their first venture outside in their spacesuits occurring only five hours later. Only Shepard and Mitchell were lucky enough to go for a wander, though, with Roosa’s role being to stay put inside the command module. The other two, meanwhile, raised an American flag and carried out tests.

In fact, not content with one expedition, Shepard and Mitchell were tasked with getting out onto the lunar surface a second time. During this second foray, the pair had to do some climbing up a crater. This must have been quite an exhausting task, as it saw them ascending for well over a mile-and-a-half. They were out there for more than four hours.

During these two moonwalks, Shepard and Mitchell managed to gather around 94 pounds of stone and residue for analysis back on Earth. It was a job well done, and it helped to cement their reputations as American icons. But Shepard did something up there which makes him stand out even further – and his bosses didn’t necessarily like it.

Shepard’s life was already interesting, long before he’d made it to the Moon. Born and raised in New Hampshire, he joined the Navy as a young man, eventually going on to serve during World War II. He made it through that conflict, before going on to train as a pilot.

By 1959 the pilot Shepard had attracted the attention of NASA, who brought him on board to become one of America’s seven initial astronauts. This would have been quite the honor, particularly in light of the political context of the period. The Space Race was well and truly on – and the Soviet Union appeared to be winning it.

Perhaps the Soviet Union’s finest moment in the Space Race came on April 12, 1961, after Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit the Earth. In other words, he was the first ever person in space. He was up there for a little under two hours, before returning – simultaneously entering both the planet’s atmosphere and the history books!

The pressure was really on NASA now, with the Soviet space program clearly making significant progress. The Americans needed to get one of their own astronauts up into space, too. The agency decided to send Shepard, who set off less than a month after Gagarin’s voyage. He became the first U.S. citizen to leave the Earth on May 5, 1961.

After such a successful mission, Shepard might have been expected to go to space again soon. Unfortunately, though, he started suffering from an inner-ear ailment and it prevented him from taking an active part in launches. He took on another role at NASA, and happily he recovered – eventually. After roughly a decade on the sidelines, he was once again ready for space.

This second mission was aboard Apollo 14, which was destined for the Moon. In addition to being the first American in space, Shepard was now going to be one of the small group of people ever to walk on the lunar surface. He would command the mission, with Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell making up the rest of the three-man crew.

The Apollo 14 crew wasn’t sent to the Moon for mere symbolic reasons – the astronauts had a job to do. They were tasked with collecting lunar materials and bringing them back to Earth, while also taking lots of photographs and laying the groundwork for future missions. And it was all to be based in the Fra Mauro region of the Moon.

The Fra Mauro region was seen as an important place to study, because it’s made up of rock that once arrived from an asteroid. This crashed into the Moon and created a vast crater known as the Imbrium basin. This was a hugely pivotal moment in our Moon’s history, so the more NASA could learn about it, the better.

Apollo 13 had initially been scheduled to arrive on Fra Mauro, but an in-flight explosion forced that mission to be canceled. All the same, the lunar region was viewed as so important that it still needed to be studied. So, Apollo 14 and its astronauts were asked to take up the mantle.

Apollo 14 was fired into space at the end of January 1971. The flight wasn’t the smoothest, as some issues forced the crew to improvise a little. Thankfully, they dealt with the problems and managed to land safely, making Apollo 14’s landing craft Antares the third craft to successfully touch down on the lunar surface.

As previously mentioned, Shepard and Mitchell were the chosen pair from the three-man crew to leave their capsule for moonwalks. Their first excursion lasted for more than nine hours, allowing them to set up equipment for future experiments. Some of the instruments they deployed that day would go on to send information back to Earth for several years.

One of the gizmos that the astronauts left on the Moon was an instrument for measuring earthquakes – or, in this case, moonquakes. This actually helped analysts to gain an insight into the inner structure of the Moon. On top of that, the two moonwalkers also collected a huge amount of rock and soil.

The second moonwalk that Shepard and Mitchell went on was a little more problematic than the first. This time, the pair were sent to trek to the top of the outer lip of a crater, which was far from a simple task. They did what they could, but ultimately they couldn’t complete their mission as planned. Even so, the work they did that day was still incredibly useful.

Over the course of their two moonwalks, Shepard and Mitchell managed to retrieve over 90 pounds’ worth of lunar material. Some of this was rock left behind when an asteroid had crashed into the Moon and created the Imbrium basin. Subsequent analysis of the material told scientists that this violent event had happened almost 4 billion years ago.

While Shepard and Mitchell were bouncing over the lunar surface during their two moonwalks, Roosa had stayed behind on board the command module. He wasn’t sitting idly, though: he had his own job to do. He took lots of high-quality photos of the Moon, which ultimately went on to help with future missions.

Over the course of a couple of days, the Apollo 14 astronauts conducted experiments that really helped to advance American space exploration. Shepard had once again gone above and beyond, making a real contribution to science and space exploration. Having said that, it wasn’t all hard work and no play.

Despite the seriousness of his mission, Shepard took a little time for leisure while he was up on the Moon. With the eyes of the world watching him and his crew mates, Shepard revealed some items that he’d stowed away before liftoff. He took out a golf club and some balls.

It was near the end of his time on the Moon that Shepard took out his golfing equipment. This must have been quite the shock for people watching back home on Earth, as they probably wouldn’t have expected something so seemingly frivolous in the middle of such an important mission. But there it was – Shepard was going to take a couple of shots.

As he revealed his secret golfing equipment, Shepard remarked, “Houston, you might recognize what I have in my hand as the contingency sample return; it just so happens to have a genuine six iron on the bottom of it. In my left hand, I have a little white pellet that’s familiar to millions of Americans.”

Shepard then took a swing – and smashed the lunar surface instead of the ball. He took another go at it, and failed once again. For his third shot, he at least made contact with the ball, but it still wasn’t a clean hit. The fourth, though, was apparently a beauty.

Shepard had taken one of the most impressive shots in history, and golf enthusiasts took notice. Butch Harmon, for instance, is a famous instructor, and he was most impressed with Shepard’s effort. In an article that appeared in The Denver Post newspaper in February 2021, he joked, “We used to say it was the longest shot in the history of the world because it hasn’t come down yet.”

While it’s certainly true that Shepard’s golf ball never came down to Earth again, it did fall back down to the lunar surface. The question is, though, how far did it travel up there? According to Shepard himself, the shot went for “miles and miles and miles.” But is that the truth?

In short: no. We can safely say that Shepard’s shot didn’t really travel for miles and miles. Having said that, the actual distance has proven to be something of a mystery. A guess of about 200 yards was suggested, but the truth of the matter had always been difficult to pinpoint. That’s all changed now, though.

A full 50 years after Shepard took a swing on the Moon, his shot’s distance has now been confirmed. That’s thanks to the efforts of Andy Saunders, an expert in digital imagery. Working his technical magic, Saunders studied images that were taken as Shepard took his shots – and he managed to figure out how far the balls traveled.

The reality, sadly, doesn’t quite live up to Shepard’s own claims. Far from traveling miles, we have to measure the shots in yards. And even then, the best hit went fewer than the estimated 200 yards that some people had once suggested. In truth, the astronaut’s first shot went for 24 yards and the second for 40.

Those numbers aren’t quite as impressive as Shepard might have hoped. But how would a professional have fared? Well, Saunders tried to work that out, too. Taking one-time PGA champion Jimmy Walker as a model, he tried to figure out how far a pro would hit a ball in the same gravitational conditions as are present on the Moon.

Down on Earth, Walker can hit a ball with a six iron roughly 200 yards. But if he was to take the same shot up on the Moon, the distance would be quite a bit longer. In the reduced gravity, apparently the ball would travel for about 4,600 yards – more than two miles! Now there’s no denying that’s significantly further than Shepard’s 40-yarder. And remember Shepard was playing one-handed, in a heavy and cumbersome spacesuit, and with an improvised club.

Still, the distance that Shepard’s ball traveled is hardly the most important aspect of this story. The fact that he took the shot at all is what matters. But why did the astronaut decide to do it? Well, according to reports, he was inspired to do so by Bob Hope, the entertainer who used to take a golf club with him wherever he traveled.

There was also a more measured reason behind Shepard’s decision to take some shots on the Moon. Basically, he figured that it would be a great way to show how different the gravity on the Moon is from Earth. So, with that in his mind, he asked a man named Jack Harden Sr. to design the perfect club for the job.

According to Brandel Chamblee, a golf expert who’s friends with Harden’s son, Harden Sr. was a genius at modifying golf clubs. The Denver Post has quoted Chamblee as saying, “[Harden] was [an] incessant tinkerer with equipment... I would tease Jack and his father, any club they got had been ‘Hardenized.’ No club off the rack was ever good enough for them. They always changed the lie, the loft, the bounce. They used lead tape. It was apropos he made Shepard’s six iron.”

Harden pulled it off, providing Shepard with the perfect club to bring along to the Moon. But the astronaut still had to argue with his bosses to allow him to actually do it. In 1998 Shepard gave an interview where he spoke about this process, remembering that his superiors were initially very reluctant.

Arguing with his boss, Shepard apparently said, “I will not be so frivolous. I want to wait until the very end of the mission, stand in front of the television camera, whack these golf balls with this makeshift club, fold it up, stick it in my pocket, climb up the ladder, and close the door, and we’ve gone.”

Shepard was evidently convincing, as he pulled off his plan and took one of the most famous golf shots in history. As a result of that, his modified golf club has become an incredibly sought-after item. A few years after taking his shot, Shepard donated the club to the United States Golf Association. But a replica has also been made and is displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

As for the golf balls themselves, Shepard had sourced these from Jack Harden Sr. And apparently, they even bore the words “Property of Jack Harden.” So, as Brandel Chamblee has pointed out, “Technically – if the balls aren’t melted – Jack is the only person who owns property on the Moon.”

Shepard passed away in 1998, the same year that he gave an interview reflecting on his lunar golfing. At that late stage of his life, it seems, the astronaut was happy with his decision to take those shots. In his words, “It was designed to be a fun thing. Fortunately, it is still a fun thing.”