Duct Tape Auto Repair on the Moon
When most people think of emergency fixes in space, the first incident that comes to mind is the famous Apollo 13 mission. The astronauts fashioned duct tape and surplus materials into air filtration canisters in the lunar module to keep all three astronauts alive for the entire trip home. You might remember the story from the 1995 Ron Howard film Apollo 13.
An ABC News poll conducted in 2005 asked over a thousand people if they kept duct tape in their emergency kits, 86% of the people polled said they did. NASA is by no means an exception. In fact, labeled officially by NASA as ‘Tape’ in the official stowage lists, every Apollo mission from 11 to 17 carried duct tape with them to the Moon (see page 8 of the Apollo 17 stowage list). Perhaps less known than the Apollo 13 incident, the Apollo 17 mission also owes much to ordinary duct tape.
The Apollo 17 mission left Earth on December 7, 1972 and arrived at the Moon on December 9. Commander Eugene “Gene” Cernan and Lunar Module pilot Harrison “Jack” Schmitt explored the lunar surface while Ron Evans remained in the Command Module, America. While on the surface, Cernan and Schmitt deployed various science experiments across their landing site, making essential use of their Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV).
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Following the first EVA, while the Apollo 17 astronauts slept, John Young, Charlie Duke, Deke Slayton, Roco Patrone, and Ronald Blevins in Houston came up with a solution. They were challenged with creating a replacement fender with only the materials that the astronauts had on the Moon, knowing that without the fender, the LRV would be practically useless for the rest of the mission. Their solution was to attach four of the 28 lunar maps with what Cernan would later call, “good old-fashioned American gray tape,” carried on board. The maps could be configured in a way that would resemble the fender extension and affixed to the fender with two clamps from the optical alignment telescope.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-repair-moon
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