Apollo 16 now has terrestrial problems

The spaceship that once landed on the moon is now in the museum. It gets dirty there too, visitors leave rubbish behind. But if sealed, the capsule would lose its patina – the traces of its history.

AP/toco

9.2.2022 - 21:21

«Apollo 16» has a problem. The capsule is dusty. Cobwebs stick to the spaceship that flew three people to the moon 50 years ago. Business cards, a pencil, money, a spoon and even a tube of lip balm lie on the bottom of the huge box that protects it.

The spacecraft is at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, a museum dedicated to the achievements of space travel run by the US state of Alabama. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the normal cleaning routine for Apollo 16, but workers are now back in shape for the 50th anniversary of its flight in April 1972.

Using microfiber cloths, extension poles, brushes, dust wands and vacuum cleaners, the 6.5-tonne, nearly ten-foot-tall capsule has already been carefully cleaned and its glass case polished, which sits beneath a huge Saturn V rocket hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of items that visitors had stuck through cracks in the capsule have been removed.

Richard Hoover, a retired NASA astrobiologist who works as a docent at the museum, recalls a time decades ago when visitors were still allowed to touch the spacecraft. Some even took pieces of the charred heat shield that kept the spacecraft from burning up when it reentered Earth's atmosphere, he says. "It's actually quite a farce because they don't realize that this is a hugely important piece of space history."

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Constant touches by visitors

In addition to overseeing the cleaning, advisory curator Ed Stewart has instructed museum staff in the maintenance of the capsule, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, which has been on display in the "rocket city" of Huntsville since the 1970s. While brushing dust off the side of the pod in protective gear, Stewart says the pod is in pretty good shape considering its age and the time since it was last cleaned. It's been about three years. "I'm glad that there aren't (...) thick layers of dust," he says. "I didn't see a lot of insect remains or anything like that, which I take as a very positive sign."

Conservation methods changed when preservationists realized that Apollo 16, built to withstand the rigors of spaceflight, doesn't hold up well to the constant touches of visitors, Stewart explains. For this reason, the housing of the capsule was sealed. "A durability of 1,000 years was not on the list of requirements that engineers made when designing spacecraft to get astronauts safely to the moon and back."

"Texture of History"

The housing of "Apollo 16" is to be further sealed so that visitors can no longer deposit anything in it. But it is important not to damage the capsule. While it would be easy to scrub the spacecraft down with grease, Stewart says, that would destroy the patina that binds it to the story. “You don't want to lose any of it because it's all part of the history of the expedition. If you clean it, it's gone. It's that extra texture to the story that just disappears into the ether if you make a mistake."

The pillared capsule -- nicknamed "Casper" during flight -- is tilted so visitors can peer into the open hatch and see the controls and metal-framed seats that house astronauts Ken Mattingly, John Young and Charlie Duke flew to the moon and back. Duke, who walked the moon with the late Young while Mattingly piloted the capsule, is expected to attend the 50th anniversary celebration of the April 16, 1972 launch in the spring.

But even though "Apollo 16" was thoroughly cleaned before it was released and all potentially dangerous materials were removed, the capsule still holds traces of the memory of the journey to the moon inside. Ed Stewart leans through the hatch and points to some dark spots. "These are the fingerprints and handprints of the crew," he says.

AP/toco