Page 100 - The Appollo Story

The Apollo Story 1-----------.......

Apollo 16 (AS-511) The Highlands Of Descartes
In April 1972 John Young made his way back to the Moon. He had been before with Apollo 10, and now
he was in command of Apollo 16 for a landing in the Descartes Highlands - the highest landing site so far
at 18,000ft (5,475m) above lunar 'sea-level.' CM pilot was Tom Mattingly, who had missed out on a
place on Apollo 13, luckily or not, and LM pilot was Charles Duke, who served as Capcom when Apollo
11 touched down on the Moon. As with Apollo 15, they were equipped with a lunar rover for their three-
day stop over, including three EVAs and a quest to bag some volcanic rock for the scientists.
The Apollo 16 mission was the second in a series of three science-oriented J series missions planned for
the Apollo program. The space vehicle was launched from the Kennedy Space Center (Launch Complex
39A) at 12:55:00 p.m. EST on 16 April 1972.
The launch cover is signed by all the crew with Charlie Duke signing twice! Tom Mattingly signed as
Ken Mattingly, which he preferred to be called - Ken being his middle name~

The insignia of Apollo 16 is domi-
nated by a rendering of an American
eagle and a red, white and blue
shield, representing the people of the
United States, overlaying a grey
background, the lunar surface. Over-
laying the shield is a gold NASA
vector, orbiting the Moon. On the
border of the insignia, there are six-
teen stars, representing the mission
number, and the names of the crew
members: Young, Mattingly and
Duke. The blue border, containing
the stars and names of the crew, is
outlined in gold. The insignia was
designed from ideas originally sub-
mitted by the crew of the mission.

J~