Falling to Earth

by Al Worden

  In late 1974 the Justice Department finally informed NASA that no legal action against us was warranted regarding the covers. The investigation ended. The funny thing is that they could never find us guilty of anything. There was a federal statute against using government property for self-gain, but our actions were not enough to warrant its use. Poor judgment was the only charge that NASA could make stick, but that’s not against the law. And yet the covers were not returned to us when we asked for them back. It appeared that NASA wanted us to forget about them.

  At that time, I didn’t push the issue. I still felt guilty and penitent. I knew I had screwed up and almost felt that NASA deserved to punish me. But as the years went by, I began to feel I had done my sentence and paid the price. In fact, with hindsight, I felt I had paid a bigger price than my actions deserved. NASA managers had wanted to make an example of me to my fellow astronauts and they had. But in the process, I thought that they had gone overboard to prove their point.

  In December of 1978, the Office of the Attorney General quietly issued a memorandum opinion on the Apollo 15 covers and sent it to NASA. Among its conclusions, it stated that NASA had no legal claim to the covers as they were not purchased by public funds nor prepared at public expense. It also found that it was “routine NASA practice” to allow astronauts to carry covers into space. They concluded that Dave’s failure to secure authorization to carry his covers was “inadvertent” and not enough cause for NASA to retain them. NASA’s only claim to my covers, the report suggested, would be if I’d had a commercial arrangement to sell the covers with Herrick. I’d already satisfied investigators that I hadn’t. The memorandum did query whether our crew should ever be able to profit from sales of the covers, but concluded that once we left NASA employment even that stipulation would no longer apply.

  The memorandum was not a full exoneration of our actions, nor should it have been. But it blew apart most of the claims NASA had made to keep hold of the covers. Not surprisingly, the memorandum was not widely distributed. I didn’t hear about it myself until October of 1981. When I did, I decided to take some action.

  I felt that NASA had washed its hands of the issue by transferring the covers to the National Archives, which just didn’t seem right to me. In fact, it felt like a violation of my constitutional rights. They had taken my personal property and placed it in the archives without following due legal process. I’d been cleared of any illegal acts, but NASA’s actions did seem illegal to me. I thought they violated my right of due process under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, one of my country’s oldest and most venerated laws.

  A decade after my spaceflight, I started to talk to lawyers, trying to find one to represent me. Many did not want to touch the case. It was too political, they told me. I would never be able to sue the government and win, even if I were in the right. Perhaps I should find a senator who would fight for me, they suggested. But I didn’t want to drag the case into the political arena. I just wanted what was legally fair and just.

  I could understand the lawyers’ apprehension. After all, taking on the government is a big deal. Their reaction did give me second thoughts for a while. But eventually I found an attorney in Palm Beach who would take on the task. It took a lot of explaining to brief him on the intricacies of the events, but luckily I’d kept good documentation. In January of 1982, my attorney officially wrote to NASA and politely but firmly asked for my covers back. I hoped the request would resolve the issue. I really didn’t want to sue NASA. Despite everything, I still loved them.

  After a year of fruitless waiting, in February of 1983, we filed a lawsuit in federal court. We requested a jury trial. I was confident that any group of citizens would see the justice in my case.

  A number of NASA lawyers contacted me, begging me to drop the case. Couldn’t I see that I had done something wrong all those years ago? Yes, I admitted, I had made a stupid mistake. But two wrongs did not make a right. And I had politely asked for my covers back with no luck, so a lawsuit was my only option.

  As the case progressed, I learned that NASA had actually wanted to give the covers back to us based on the advice of the Justice Department, but a number of congressional committees had been against the idea. I learned, too, that the Apollo 16 crew had also turned in their personal covers, and NASA had impounded them. They’d had no luck getting them back either. And an interesting precedent had been set in October 1977 by Ed Mitchell, who had sold one of the covers he took with him to the moon on Apollo 14. According to newspaper reports, some NASA officials were furious, but Ed was a private citizen now, so there was nothing NASA could do. He’d operated under the same lack of rules as our crew.

  I was confident about getting my Herrick covers back. Then I discovered that there were even less legal grounds, according to the Justice Department, for NASA to hold the covers that Dave had carried for the three of us. Unlike the covers given to Sieger, they had not been created specifically to sell, only for us to keep. And unlike the Herrick covers, they had never left our possession.

  Based on that information, in April 1983 I widened the lawsuit. I contacted Dave and Jim and asked if they wanted me to represent all of us to get those covers back. They agreed. Dave had made his own strong inquiries over the years pressing for the return of the covers and was eager to have them. Jim and Dave did not join me in suing the government, but they helped with the legal fees. If I lost the case, all they would lose was a little money.

  NASA didn’t help its case any by beginning to fly postal covers into space itself. The same year I filed my suit, NASA announced plans to carry more than two hundred sixty thousand postal covers on the eighth space shuttle mission in August 1983. They expected to sell them to the public immediately after the flight, make more than one and a half million dollars from the deal, and split the proceeds with the post office. I only learned about it after I’d filed my suit, but I was very amused by the coincidence. It made our little handful of covers look like no big deal at all, especially since NASA’s covers were intended for unabashed commercial exploitation.

  In May, my lawyers asked NASA for all documents relating to personal items carried on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flights and their distribution and current whereabouts. We asked for the dates that each item had been given to a person and where it was now. It sounds like a simple request and was of obvious relevance to my case. In theory, it should have been easy for NASA to comply. But, of course, they’d never kept track of the items astronauts personally carried. They also had very little information about the tens of thousands of items given over the years to public officials. From the president on down, recipients could have sold their gifts long ago, given them away, or passed them on to someone else. In a jury trial, those individuals—including the president—could be called to give important testimony. We planned to depose many of them.

  I also asked NASA to produce any and all official orders, directives, and memoranda on PPKs up to and including the time of my flight. If there were rules, I wanted to know what they were. If there were no rules in place, a jury should know that, too.

  Given the difficulty that our simple requests would have caused NASA, I wasn’t surprised when the next response was an offer to settle the case.

  The settlement agreement between me and the government was finalized on July 15, 1983. They agreed to completely and unconditionally release all the covers to us, at which time my legal counsel would terminate the lawsuit.

  As part of the agreement, the three of us on the Apollo 15 crew also agreed not to pursue any further liability against the government in the matter of the covers. It was called an “amicable resolution.” I’d seriously considered saying no to the deal and pursuing a claim for damages against the government for the seizure of my property. I thought I had a strong case and think I would have won a substantial settlement. But, on reflection, that wasn’t the reason I was doing this. I did it to resolve a painful episode in my life and move on.

  Dave
and Jim had awarded me the power of attorney to pick up their covers. So on July 29, I headed to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for a morning appointment. The covers were in storage, right next to the Warren Commission report on President Kennedy’s assassination. They were brought to me in a small storage box. In the corner of that mostly empty box was a little pile of postal covers. I placed the box on a table the staff told me had been used as part of the surrender ceremonies at the end of World War II, and I signed my own peace treaty with the government there.

  Jim and Dave met me at the archives, and we strolled to a local Irish pub. Over a drink, we divided up the envelopes as agreed. At last, our personal, private property was under our control again, to do with as we wished. It was a peculiar final meeting as a trio, sharing a meal and passing envelopes around. To my recollection, it was the last time the three of us were ever in the same room together.

  I had just done Dave and Jim a big favor. Getting the covers back did a lot to clear our names at long last. The newspaper coverage of the settlement used phrases such as “proved themselves right and blameless,” and “after eleven years they’d been vindicated.” Nevertheless, it did not feel like a time to celebrate.

  Suing my former employer had been a bitter experience. I didn’t love all of the managers at NASA, but I still loved the work they did, especially now that the space shuttle was flying and the space program was rolling again in a way that it had not done for a decade. Now we’d settled all of our differences. Then, as the people I disliked retired or moved on and the covers issue receded into ancient history, my relationship with NASA grew warm and cozy again. Today, it’s better than ever.

  Dave was very pleased with me. And it was oddly satisfying to be the crewmember who took the lead and sorted out the mess. But ten years of reflection on the events surrounding my firing had changed my feelings toward Dave. My deep admiration for him as a spaceflight commander was still strong. My feelings about him as a person were quite different. I didn’t feel particularly friendly to him. And in the quarter of a century that has passed since we sat there having a drink that day, I have rarely felt otherwise.

  For better or worse, for richer or poorer, we’ll always be a crew. When I give public presentations, I proudly wear a jacket with an Apollo 15 patch on it; Dave’s and Jim’s names are right there on my chest next to mine. We’ll forever be a team who accomplished an amazing flight. But that is where it ends. I am happy to talk with the public for hours about Dave Scott the outstanding astronaut whom I trusted with my life in space. When it comes to the individual whom I followed just as eagerly here on earth, now that I have written this book, I doubt I will give him much thought for the rest of my life.

  Jim, on the other hand, I still loved like a brother, and I met up with him whenever I could. I admired his energy, but I worried about his health. He kept up that relentless speaking schedule. It seemed he was in a different corner of the world every month, spreading his religious message. He slimmed down and jogged five miles a day to try to stay healthy, but in the end it wasn’t enough.

  On August 8, 1991 I received a phone call from a mutual friend—the message I had long dreaded. Jim had suffered another heart attack—and this time it was fatal. He was only sixty-one years old.

  It was a shock for the NASA community. Only twelve people had walked on the moon, and now the world had lost one. I attended Jim’s funeral in Colorado Springs—an odd experience, with a chapel full of well-known televangelists orating at length about a man they barely knew—and hoped it would be the last astronaut funeral for a long time. It wasn’t. In that same decade we lost four other guys who had flown to the moon. Time was catching up with us.

  In 1997 I retired from a great technology acquisition job in private industry and was ready to work for myself again. Then I received an unexpected call from NASA. Jack Boyd, a senior manager, had an intriguing offer. Would I like to come back and work for them?

  Ames was creating a new aircraft division, and Jack wanted me to be in charge of all of NASA’s airplanes for the entire western half of the continent. It was an outstanding job and a great pay offer. I was deeply tempted. So I headed out to Ames, where I would be based once again and started to look at houses. But since I had left, the area had grown more and more as a high-tech hub. The high-paying computer jobs in Silicon Valley had accelerated the house prices astronomically. With regret, I had to turn down the job; I just couldn’t afford to live there anymore. Nevertheless, it meant a lot to me to be asked back. My journey to repair my self-esteem was almost complete. Only one challenge remained.

  CHAPTER 14

  A NEW TRANQUILITY

  My mother lived through it all. In 1909, when she was born, people struggled to fly across the English Channel. It was only six years after the Wright brothers made their historic flight. She lived to join me in celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of my flight to the moon. Yet none of the advances in technology meant much to her. She remained the same stoic farm girl she had always been, heading the family and directing our social events. Eventually she needed daily nursing care, but she still remained fiercely independent. She stayed active until the end, but eventually she just wore out. At the age of ninety-four, she faded away.

  She had taught me self-reliance, something that had served me well throughout my life. Nevertheless, although I could operate alone, I still wanted acceptance from my peers. I’d fixed most of the pieces over three decades. I had resolved the covers issue. I’d made friends with NASA again. But I still hoped for the acceptance, even the forgiveness, of my astronaut peers.

  When I moved to Florida in the early 1980s, I became involved in the local Boys’ Club. They did great work inspiring kids who needed help in life. Each year I would try to bring astronauts out to help with their annual fundraising event. One year I managed to assemble nineteen of us, including the Apollo 11 crew.

  Then, in 1984, I heard that the surviving members of the original Mercury astronaut group were creating a foundation, the Mercury Seven Foundation, to provide scholarships for college students who exhibited exceptional performance in science or engineering. I liked the idea of helping the best and brightest through college, knowing they could make a real difference to future innovation.

  So I got in touch with Al Shepard, the astronaut who was driving the project. Put me on the board, I suggested—I can help. I’m not sure he thought much of me, but as I lived close to the Cape, where most of the foundation’s activities took place, eventually he put me to work. I suspect my appointment was simply because I was close by, so I could be tasked with some of the less glamorous chores.

  The Mercury astronauts were older than my astronaut group, so as time went by my peers needed to assume more of the responsibilities. Al passed away in 1998, and the foundation widened its scope to become the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, known as the ASF. In 2005, I was elected to chair the foundation.

  The first year the Mercury Seven Foundation gave out scholarships, they awarded a total of seven thousand dollars. Over the years we’ve grown to the point where we have now awarded more than two and a half million. At a time of life when many people have retired, I work harder than ever, aggressively courting sponsors and colleges so we can help more and more students every year. We’re trying to pick kids who will make a huge difference two decades from now. Perhaps they will take us beyond the moon and out to the planets. Perhaps they will help provide the world with clean and renewable energy or help us to restore our Earth’s fragile environment. I don’t know. I do know that their achievements will be important and impressive.

  The ASF is based out by the Cape, so most weeks I am back at the site where I launched to the moon decades ago. It’s an exciting place, and the only launch center in the world that I know of where you can drive up, buy a ticket, and see everything that goes on. There’s a great visitor center stuffed with spacecraft and other items from the long history of spaceflight. Every day of the year a former astronaut is the
re to give a talk to the public. Quite often I am the speaker. I enjoy talking to people and watching them explore the place, learning as they go.

  Anytime the folks at the Cape need something, I am there. Because of my proximity, I make more public appearances there than any other Apollo astronaut. It’s a little ironic; I am promoting NASA and their work almost every week, much more than most of the guys who finished their astronaut careers with honor. But I love NASA and what they do. Many of the people working there weren’t even born when I was an astronaut, and they couldn’t be a more enthusiastic and hardworking bunch.

  It is still a thrill for me to watch a launch. Recently, that’s been the space shuttle, including one named Endeavour, just like my spacecraft. Much of the time I watch the launches up close from the Cape. But sometimes I just stroll across the street from my home down the coast and, standing on the beach with a drink in my hand, watch that bright fiery glow as it leaps into the sky and arcs away into orbit. If I feel lazy, I can even see them launch from my backyard. It never gets old.

  I wasn’t far from the Cape one cold morning in January of 1986 when, stopped at a gas station on my way to Orlando, I watched the Challenger spacecraft make its last flight. I’d seen enough launches to know that something had gone terribly wrong when the solid rocket boosters suddenly separated, and the clean thin line of launch exhaust twisted into an expanding orange ball of gas. Standing in that gas station, I’d just witnessed a tragedy that killed seven astronauts.

  I wasn’t far from home, so I raced back and turned on the TV. As soon as I learned some of the details, I felt the need to get up to the Cape. There were many people I knew there, helping to console the grief-stricken families. I tried to do what I could to assist. Most people just wanted to talk, just like they had after the Apollo 1 fire. It was one of the saddest days of my life.