“It’s a very small number of worker
bees right now. I wish I had started it
a little sooner, but we get smarter and
smarter (as people) as the clock goes
round.”
Coming back from the Moon
was not something anyone could
have adequately prepared for.
After quarantine, debriefing and
a worldwide tour celebrating the
mission, each of the three astronauts
dealt with the weight of their
accomplishment in different manners.
“It’s not necessarily a universal
significance change. In my case
there were, not mitigating, but
outside influences. That is why I titled
my first autobiography ‘Return to
Earth’ instead of ‘Journey to the
Moon’ or ‘The Moon and Back.’ That is
because the return proved to be the
most difficult part of the mission. There
are a couple of autobiographies that
cover my inherited depression and
alcoholism. You don’t arrest either
one, but I have 35 years of sobriety
and my mental state most of the time
is positive.”
While Aldrin admits he can’t carry
a tune, and isn’t likely to ever be
seen climbing a mountain, he is still a
man who has travelled the Earth and
beyond in the name of adventure.
He has been an avid scuba diver for
more than 55 years and has made
recreational dives at locations all
around the world. At present he’s
been in a ‘holding pattern’ for five
years waiting to reach the South Pole
via a hovercraft. Definitely not your
typical summer vacation destination.
“I’ve been to the North Pole on a
Russian nuclear icebreaker. That was
quite enlightening. Even more so
years before that in a French yellow
submarine for three people – two
spoke French and one did not, that’s
me – we went down for a total of 11
hours visiting the Titanic. I was given
a baseball cap that says ‘Bottom
Gun.’ Not ‘Top Gun.’ It was given
to me because Bob Ballard felt that
anyone that had been down to see
the Titanic – even an Air Force guy –
should have a cap that says ‘Bottom
Gun.’
“That’s some of the versatility of my
inquisitiveness about exploration to
the fringes.”
With more than 40 years having
passed since humanity last stepped
on the Moon, it is not a stretch to
say that a majority of the world’s
population has zero recollection
of that era. While historians have
dissected the details in numerous
books over the years, the simple fact
remains that only two dozen people
truly know what the experience of
leaving low earth orbit is like. Getting
to that point was not just a shot in the
dark. Even though it took less than a
decade to accomplish, NASA took a
very calculated approach to reach
the Moon.
“The
Moon
landings
were
prepared for in a gradual way by
the three programs of American
human spaceflight – Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo. I’ve not really seen this
written down, but I’ve heard that the
modules were too heavy to land.
The crew rotations would have kept
going pretty close to what they
actually did. The first landing would
have been achieved by Apollo 12
in October of ’69 and not Apollo
11 in July ’69. Obviously something
happened to LEM 5 that made it
a qualified lander. It was reduced
in weight, but we still sort of jokingly
blamed the program manager, who
I’ve gotten to know very well, that
he’s the guy that caused us to run
low on fuel. No, we didn’t have less
fuel. We were heavier than most later
spacecraft. Sometimes things don’t
work the way you expect them too.”
Of course before the Apollo
spacecraft could be hurled toward
the Moon by the mighty Saturn V
rocket, there were a number of
The Aldrin Cycler makes travel to Mars possible via a perpetually cycling route, allowing spacecraft to use far less
propellant than conventional means. In each cycle, when the Aldrin Cycler’s trajectory swings it by the Earth, a
smaller interceptor spacecraft will dock with it.
Credit: Jonathan M. Mihaly and Victor Q. Dang
reason that 20 Apollo missions were
prepared and built to be carried out,
was that people felt assured that we
would at least land successfully on
ONE of those 20 missions. There was a
strong belief that President Kennedy’s
commitment would be carried out.
“In late 1967 and early ’68 the
first landing on the Moon was going
to be in mid October ’69 to be
accomplished by LEM 6. This was
because all the preceding lunar
problems that had to be solved,
and procedures to test. The Mercury
and Gemini programs were the test
beds that directly led into the Apollo
program.
“The Mercury spacecraft could
not maneuver fore and aft, left and
right, and up and down. The only
thing that allowed it to reenter were
that retrorockets slowed it up so it
reentered the atmosphere. Now the
Gemini system with two people in
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