When Pete Conrad and I came down the ladder for our first walk on the Moon, about all we had with us were the clothes (and backpacks) on our backs. If we were to do our planned scientific work, we were going to need equipment, and a lot of it. Most of this equipment was stowed in fold-down compartments on the sides of the lunar module descent stage.

Pete is working at the right front fold-down compartment, the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly, the MESA, offloading some of the things we will need for the first exploration period. Pete and I have already set up the large S-band antenna so we have better voice and television communications with Earth. I had unstowed it from a smaller compartment on the left front side of the descent stage. On other missions, the rover, the electrically powered moon buggy, would be mounted, all folded up, in this same stowage area.

This painting emphasizes the size of the lunar module. As I looked at it on the Moon, it seemed much, much bigger than I remembered just four days previously back on the launch pad of Kennedy Space Center. It was a friendly home in a faraway world.