posted 12-22-2017 06:34 AM               

I also remember that for Apollo 11 there was a "contingency sample," which Armstrong was to perform as one of his first tasks. And that was to pick up a quick sample of lunar soil in he event that the surface EVA had to be cut short.

posted 01-08-2018 12:50 PM               

Above all, Apollo 11 was very much an experimental flight. We'd done everything before up to the actual landing. We didn't know we could land on the surface (though Surveyors showed us it could be done). We didn't know we could hit a precise spot on the moon when we did land. We didn't know if or how we could walk and work in 1/6g, even though they practiced it on Earth. It's definitely not the same on the moon as it is in the simulators here on Earth. Because of all the unknowns still left to discover (safety), the planners thought it best to keep the surface activities as short and simple as possible until we knew what we could do.

Apollo 11's mission was to see if it could be done. The missions that followed built upon the lessons learned from Apollo 11. Apollo 12 stayed out two times for four hours each, but never ventured very far from the landing site. Apollo 14 astronauts were the first to venture more than a mile away from the LM. It wasn't until Apollo 15 that mission planners felt comfortable enough to send astronauts five or six miles away from the landing area, still within a reasonable walking distance. When they drove the rover, they always started at the stop furthest from the LM and worked their way back in case something happened.