Astronaut Gear

Two questions about the equipment Apollo astronauts had while on the
moon.

1) Did they have portable lights? Flash lights, helmet lights, some
kind of light they could use poking around in a hypothetical moon
cave?

2) On the topic of poking around in moon caves, did the space suit
radios act as relays for each other? For example, if an astronaut got
well into a cave so his suit radio wasn't reaching the lander, would
another astronaut's radio act as a relay to the lander and then to
Earth? Or was it just a direct connection to the lander only?

Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Mike Miller wrote:

Two questions about the equipment Apollo astronauts had while on the
moon.

1) Did they have portable lights? Flash lights, helmet lights, some
kind of light they could use poking around in a hypothetical moon
cave?

No, but I doubt anyone seriously considered that they'd find one.
Indeed, the early landing sites were picked because they were fairly
flat, and unchallenging to landing.

Not that it would be at all hard to provide those things in the
future....

2) On the topic of poking around in moon caves, did the space suit
radios act as relays for each other? For example, if an astronaut got
well into a cave so his suit radio wasn't reaching the lander, would
another astronaut's radio act as a relay to the lander and then to
Earth? Or was it just a direct connection to the lander only?

Yep, just to the lander and each other.

"Mike Miller" wrote in message
om...
Two questions about the equipment Apollo astronauts had while on the
moon.

1) Did they have portable lights? Flash lights, helmet lights, some
kind of light they could use poking around in a hypothetical moon
cave?

2) On the topic of poking around in moon caves, did the space suit
radios act as relays for each other? For example, if an astronaut got
well into a cave so his suit radio wasn't reaching the lander, would
another astronaut's radio act as a relay to the lander and then to
Earth? Or was it just a direct connection to the lander only?


While there was some early talk about exploring any caves that might be
found (much more likely to be lava tubes, as most caves as we know them on
Earth require the presence of water at some point in their history) I'm
pretty sure any plans were nixed due to the dangers (out of contact from
Earth, darkness, etc.) In addition most would probably have required
vertical gear, which would have introduced even more dangers.



Mike Miller, Materials Engineer