The Apollo 15 crew landed next to the Apennine mountain range and the Hadley Rille, the most dangerous target yet attempted. The module hit hard about 15 yards from the edge of a crater that could have destroyed it, pitching and rolling until finally coming to a halt.
Before their first of three excursions across the surface, David Scott and James Irwin became the first lunar explorers to sleep in the nude. Previous crews had been required to keep their pressure suits on, making for very fitful and uncomfortable "nights." (The sun shines for 14.75 Earth days on the Moon.)
The pair also were the first to drive a lunar rover across the surface, at speeds averaging eight kilometers an hour. On their second excursion, they found the so-called "Genesis" rock waiting for them, almost dust-free, sitting on a rock pedestal. The rock turned out to be the oldest yet found on the Moon, dated at almost 4.5 billion years. They also discovered that the Hadley Rille showed ten layers in its canyon walls, proving that the nearby Sea of Rains had been formed by a series of lava flows over many millions of years.
