Commanding the expedition was the first American in space, Alan Shepard (left, center). The only member of Project Mercury to make it to the Moon, Shepard had been scheduled to fly on the first Gemini mission but was then grounded for four years because of the onset of Mèniére's disease, an inner ear disorder, and had finally undergone radical surgery that eliminated the condition. The Command Module Pilot was Stuart Roosa (left, left), a former Air Force fighter pilot who had served as CapCom for Apollo 9. (As it turned out, Apollo 14 was Roosa's only trip into space. He was the first Apollo astronaut assigned to a primary crew without first having served on a backup crew.) They were originally scheduled to be the crew for Apollo 13 but agreed to a switch in order to get in more training time.

Launch date was Jan. 31, 1971. Blastoff was late because National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) officials had ordered a hold because of bad weather. It was the first such occurrence. (Apollo 12 had launched during a thunderstorm and sustained a lightning strike that did no damage.)

Shepard and Mitchell were on the surface of the Moon for 33 hours and did two sessions of extravehicular activity (EVA), totaling more than nine hours. They performed experiments similar to those done by previous crews, including setting up some that would remain when they left; this crew, however, had a pull cart for carrying equipment. The cart came in handy for towing things around and having supplies ready to hand, but it became a nuisance when the astronauts had to carry it over rough terrain. One of the goals of the second EVA to to reach the rim of Cone Crater, which was 1,000 feet tall. Because the slopes of the crater were so many, Shepard and Mitchell had to turn back because of low oxygen supply in their space suits before they reached the rim; later analysis showed that they were just 100 feet away from their goal.

The crew brought back rocks from the lunar surface, including the famous Big Bertha, at 20 pounds the third-largest Moon rock retrieved; in 2019, scientists concluded that the rock was 4 billion years old and that it probably originated on Earth.

Just before they got back in the Lunar Module, the astronauts engaged in a bit of sports-related research. Shepard had brought two golf balls and the head of a 6-iron golf club, which he affixed to one end of a tool that he and Mitchell had been using for soil excavation. Shepard took one swing at each golf ball (using just one hand so as not to tip over in the bulky space suit) and connected both times, sending both balls flying through the air. Mitchell took his turn, throwing a tool as if it were a javelin.

They arrived home on February 9. Apollo 14 was the last of the lunar landing crews to undergo quarantine. They were shut away for 17 days.

The crew were (from left in photo) Commander Dave Scott, Command Module Pilot Al Worden, and Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin. Scott was making his third spaceflight, having flown alongside Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8 and as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 9. Both Irwin and Worden were making their first trip into space.

The Apollo 15 mission was the first to have a heavy focus on science. NASA had brought in Caltech geologist Lee Silver to meet with the crews of the previous two Apollo missions, but it was Scott, the Apollo 15 commander, who pushed his crew to achieve as much as possible in the scientific realm. As a result, Silver led the crew on geology field trips during their terrestrial training, visiting sites in Arizona and New Mexico. As well, Worden, who would stay in the Command Module and orbit the Moon, studied intensely with another geologist, Farouk El-Baz, studying maps and photos of the lunar craters that he would see while in lunar orbit, so he could contribute to the surface missions.

One of the big highlights of this mission was the debut of the Lunar Roving Vehicle. The 460-pound rolling craft could be folded into a space 5 feet by 20 inches and could carry a total of 1500 pounds, including the two astronauts. Each wheel had its own 200-watt electric motor. The craft could top a speed of 8 miles per hour.

Blastoff was on the morning of July 26, 1961. The crew overcame a few technical difficulties along the way, including a leak in the water system that they plugged, and entered lunar orbit three days later. Scott and Irwin climbed into the Lunar Module and landed on the lunar surface on July 30, near Hadley Rille. Because of the dust that the landing craft was kicking up, the landing itself was a bit bumpy, to which Irwin yelled "Bam!" after they touched down.

As had previous Apollo crews, Scott and Irwin collected a number of samples of lunar dust and rocks, the utility of the Rover giving them the ability to range relatively far and wide from their landing craft. Among the rocks that they brought back was the so-called Genesis Rock, thought to have been part of the lunar crust from earliest times.

Back at the Lunar Module, Scott employed a U.S. Postal Service kit to cancel a first day cover of two stamps being issued on that day, August 2. Then, he performed one of the Apollo program's most important experiments: proving the theory of noted Italian scientist Galileo Galilei that objects in the same gravity field, even if they have different weights, fall at the same rate in the absence of aerodynamic drag. Galileo had attempted to prove his experiment by dropping various objects from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and other places, but the air resistance of the Earth had always gotten in the way. Scott held a hammer in one hand and a feather in the other hand and dropped them at the same time. With the television cameras rolling, the hammer and the feather struck the lunar surface at exactly the same time.

The crew returned on August 7. Their mission achieved all of its primary scientific objectives and brought home a large amount of knowledge and lunar materials for NASA scientists to study. Scott and Irwin drove a total of 17.5 miles in the Rover and collected more than 170 pounds of lunar samples, including a crust sample from 10 feet beneath the surface. They spent 18.5 hours on the lunar surface, including one 7.5-hour EVA, the longest expedition yet. They deployed 10 experiments. The photographs and scans taken by all three astronauts proved invaluable to scientists on the ground. What the crew recorded and shared certainly informed the next two Apollo missions.