Apollo 10: Music to their ears

Cernon, Stafford and Young     (NASA photo)

Apollo 10 was a final dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.  Its lunar module came within 15.6 kilometers of the moon’s surface.

On board the spacecraft were three experienced astronauts:  Commander Thomas P. Stafford, Command Module Pilot John W. Young and Lunar Module Pilot Eugene A. Cernan.

As the mission was flying past the far side of the moon, it was “out of radio contact with Earth.”  Astronauts were therefore “not expecting to hear anything on their instruments.”

CNN reports that newly-released NASA tapes indicate otherwise.  Cernan is highlighted as saying to his fellow voyagers:  You hear that?  That whistling sound?  Whooooooo…  That sure is weird music.

The team concurred, and then even “debated whether or not to mention it to their superiors at NASA, out of fear that it would cast doubt on their suitability for future spaceflight.”

Decades later, a theory is now being publicized about this “music.”  The official NASA word is that the “radios in the two spacecraft [the lunar module and the command module] were interfering with each other.”

Perhaps.  Astronaunt Al Worden, however, begs to differ.  He stated, “…logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there’s something [unexplained] there.”   

Resources

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/21/world/far-side-moon-music/index.html 

Copyright February 22, 2016 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved