According to ALSEP Flight System Familiarization Manual, p. 2-166, some Apollo missions carried a grenade launcher and 4 grenades. What were these used for?
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For the seismic experiments – Jul 29 '19 at 15:04
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1See https://space.stackexchange.com/a/37774/6944 – Organic Marble Jul 29 '19 at 15:05
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42Even more fun, Apollo 14 didn't use their grenades, and they are still on the lunar surface. – DrSheldon Jul 29 '19 at 19:02
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3Due to an influx of joke comments, all joke comments on this post will be deleted. However, we would appreciate your sense of humor in chat if you want to drop by! – called2voyage Jul 31 '19 at 16:49
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Have any of them been used? – Everyday Astronaut Aug 01 '19 at 10:17
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Apollo 14 and 16 each carried four grenades. Apollo 14 placed their mortar too close to the central station, so they were never fired. Three of four placed by Apollo 16 were fired. Because the mortar pitch sensor broke and the scientific objectives were met, the final grenade was not fired. – DrSheldon Sep 18 '19 at 21:25
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https://youtu.be/l03rCM7RugI – Adam Ledger Sep 19 '19 at 02:01
1 Answers
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They were part of an active seismic imaging experiment (archived version on wayback)
By setting up a seismometer and setting off surface explosions of known size, you can get a lot of information about how shockwaves propagate underground, from which you can infer structure.
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