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During the Apollo era,

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six missions landed on the near side of the Moon,

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each with unique stories to tell.

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Here we are visiting the Apollo 14 landing site, known as Fra Mauro,

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as imaged and mapped by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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The base of the Lunar Module Antares can still be seen on the surface.

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The orange line is the outbound path that astronauts Al Shepard

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and Ed Mitchell took on their second moonwalk.

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Their destination was the rim of Cone crater,

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about a mile away on the far side of a fairly steep hill.

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The trouble was, they couldn't see Cone crater at any

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point along the way, and their map

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wasn't of high enough resolution to be helpful.

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As they hiked, they had to drag a two-wheeled tool caddy

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called the Modular Equipment Transporter or MET.

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In the low gravity and rough terrain of the Moon,

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the MET was always on the verge of tipping over.

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It took two and a half hours to reach station C1,

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thirty minutes longer than planned,

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but they still couldn't see Cone and had to start their return

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hike to the Lunar Module.

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They didn't know it at the time, but as this LRO

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imagery shows, they had actually come

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within 150 feet of the crater rim.

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The astronauts still managed to achieve their science goal,

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sampling the field of material blasted from the lunar surface

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when Cone crater was formed.

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But they missed the spectacular view

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just a few dozen steps from the end of their trail.