Astronaut Alan Shepard's mission: Fly to the moon. Study it in more
detail than ever before. Hit a golf ball in low gravity. But how far?
Find out in this engaging STEM/STEAM picture book.
In 1971, Alan Shepard and his fellow astronauts made their way to the
Moon in the cramped Apollo 14 capsule. Their mission: Study the moon in
more detail than ever before. While the world watched on TV, Shepard and
Edgar Mitchell gathered rock and soil samples wearing stiff, heavy
spacesuits. But Alan Shepard had a secret hidden in his sock: two tiny
golf balls. Golf was Shepard's favorite sport. And since the moon has
virtually no atmosphere and gravity that is only a fraction of the
Earth's, a golf ball should have been able to go far. But did it?
Here's the little-known but true story of an experiment that may have
started as a stunt, but ended up making people think differently about
the moon, ask questions, and look for answers.