Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Apollo 16 astronaut almost lost his wedding ring in outer space

Ken (left), pictured with John Young.
Ken (left), pictured with John Young.

IT’S the worst nightmare of every married man.

Life is going along nice and smoothly, and then you lose your wedding ring.

What do you do?

Fortunately, we often manage to locate it, down the back of the sofa, in the loo at work, or the locker room at the sports centre, and we can finally relax again.

If, however, you lost your wedding ring while on an Apollo space mission, countless miles from home and out there in the pitch-black, endless space, you’d be in major trouble.

When Apollo 16 went off into the outer reaches in 1972, it was on an 11-day trip to the moon and back, with Ken Mattingly part of the crew as its command module pilot.

On their second day, Ken lost his wedding ring, recalling that it simply floated off and nobody on board could find it.

As the days went by and Ken and crew still failed to locate the missing band of gold, he began to think about excuses.

After three days on the moon alongside Commander John Young and lunar module pilot Charlie Duke, the crew still had seen no sign of the ring.

When they began the long journey home to their own planet, poor Ken had given up any hope of finding it. Nine days on, the team went outside their craft for a space walk.

With the hatch open, Ken was floating alongside the spaceship, conducting a scientific experiment, while anchored to a pole.

Duke floated out to check how he was getting on, and the pair of them marvelled at the view, with the moon now 50,000 miles away over Ken’s shoulder.

To his lower right was planet Earth, but it was something much smaller that caught his eye.

There, floating ever so slowly out of the door, was his lost wedding ring.

He reached out to grab it, but everything up there seems to happen in slow motion, and he failed.

Then he realised it was floating towards the back of Duke’s helmeted head!

Duke was blissfully unaware, too busy doing an experiment of his own, but he turned when the ring hit his helmet and had the presence of mind to grab it before it headed off into darkness for all time.

Now 80, Ken spent the rest of his career as a Space Shuttle development manager, but never forgot the time he lost his band of gold in space, but found it again.


READ MORE

Retired aerospace engineer builds backyard rollercoasters for his grandchildren

Why space travel ruins astronauts’ sight