Video: 'Flying Down to Hadley Rille, Apollo 15 Moon Landing, 1971'

(Friday, July 30, 1971, 6:16:29 p.m. EDT) — Two American astronauts rode their craft to a smooth landing on the Moon tonight, coming to rest in a valley at the foot of spectacular mountains and near the rim of a deep canyon, Hadley Rille.
“O.K., Houston, the Falcon is on the plain at Hadley.” Col. David R. Scott, the commander, radioed at the moment the Apollo 15 landing craft, Falcon, settled onto the dusty surface.

Colonel Scott and Lieut. Col. James B. Irwin thus became the fourth pair of astronauts to land on the Moon. The touch down came after a four?day voyage from the earth.

The landing site, which the astronauts are calling Hadley Base, was thought to be about 1,500 feet northeast of the target point. It was well within the area where the two men hope to spend nearly three days setting up scientific instruments and exploring the craters, canyons and foothills of the lunar Apennine mountains.

After surveying the undulating, boulder?strewn terrain, Colonel Scott told Mission Control at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston: “Tell all the geologists in the back room to get ready, because we’ve really got some thing for them.”

Colonel Scott and Colonel Irwin plan to start their first excursion outside the landing craft at 9:24 a.m. EDT tomorrow (July 31, 1971) with depressurization of the cabin. Their wide?ranging activities, including a ride to the canyon rim on a four?wheel roving vehicle, are scheduled to last about seven hours.