(From the Archives, April 29) Pin-point return of astronauts

The Apollo-16 astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific yesterday ending an 11-day mission to the lunar highlands full of spectacular successes, disappointing failures and intriguing new clues to the puzzle of the moon’s creation. America’s next-to-last scheduled manned flight to the moon, a $445 million venture ended at 19-45 GMT (01-15 IST) Friday, when the command ship Casper landed in gentle, blue-green sea about 2,400 km. south of Honolulu. After burning through the earth’s atmosphere at 39.699 km. per hour, astronauts John W. Young, Charles M. Duke Jr. and Thomas Mattingly splashed down precisely on schedule and only a mile from the waiting aircraft carrier Ticonderoga after a voyage of 13,91,000 miles (22,37,255 km). They reported their physical condition was “outstanding”. A few minutes before, they felt a reassuring tug of gravity as three huge, orange-and-white striped parachutes blossomed under the near-cloudless skies and lowered Casper to the ocean. The parachutes were specially strengthened to avoid a repeat of Apollo 15’s hard landing last August when one of the three parachutes failed to open completely. The cone-shaped command ship nevertheless appeared before a nationwide television audience to have hit the water hard.