In 1961, the first humans to travel in space were Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, followed by American astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.
America’s many astronauts, scientists, engineers, and physicians worked tirelessly to figure out how to fly humans in space, and how to do it in the best and safest way possible. In total there were 12 manned Apollo lunar missions: 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Some of the missions were designed to orbit the Earth, some were designed to orbit the Moon, and some were designed to land men on the Moon. The Apollo lunar missions 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 landed men on the Moon, and the 12 astronauts who walked on the Moon were:
Apollo 11 Launch: July 16, 1969-Landing: July 24, 1969
Neil Alden Armstrong (Commander)
Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. (Lunar Module Pilot)
Apollo 12 Launch: November 14, 1969-Landing: November 24, 1969
Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. (Commander)
Alan LaVern Bean (Lunar Module Pilot)
Apollo 14 Launch: January 31, 1971-Landing: February 9, 1971
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (Commander)
Edgar Dean Mitchell, Sc.D (Lunar Module Pilot)
Apollo 15 Launch: July 26, 1971-Landing: August 7, 1971
David Randolph Scott (Commander)
James Benson Irwin (Lunar Module Pilot)
Apollo 16 Launch: April 16, 1972-Landing: April 27, 1972
John Watts Young (Commander)
Charles “Charlie” Moss Duke Jr. (Lunar Module Pilot)
Apollo 17 Launch: December 7, 1972-Landing: December 19, 1972
Eugene “Gene” Andrew Cernan (Commander)
Harrison Hagan “Jack” Schmitt (Lunar Module Pilot)
I was with NASA for six years from 1966 to 1972, and I had six major astronaut assignments:
1969: Apollo 9—Member of the Astronaut Support Crew
1969: Apollo 10—Backup Lunar Module Pilot
1971: Apollo 14—Lunar Module Pilot (The sixth man to walk on the Moon)
1971: Apollo 15—CAPCOM (Lunar Module Landing and Launch)
1972: Apollo 16—Backup Lunar Module Pilot
1972: Apollo 16—CAPCOM (Lunar Extravehicular Activity)
Project #1: Design a Moon Lander
Many of the spacecraft parts and systems for the Apollo program were constructed across the country and around the world, and it was very common to work in different cities other than Houston. My first big project at NASA was at the Grumman Aircraft facility in Bethpage, Long Island, where I helped design and test a state-of-the-art Moon vehicle called a Lunar Module (LM) that was appropriately named Spider. Every week I’d fly to Grumman in Long Island with fellow astronaut Fred Haise to work on this unusual spacecraft. I remember the first time Fred and I took a gander at the Spider. All we could say was, “Wow—how in the world is that thing supposed to fly us down to the Moon?”
But this bug-like spacecraft worked quite well. It was designed to carry two astronauts away from their main spacecraft, the Command Module, and then fly them to the surface of the Moon. It would then launch and fly the astronauts back up to the Command Module after their lunar work was done so the crew could return to Earth. It would also act as a miniature home where the astronauts would eat, sleep, and prepare for excursions on the surface of the Moon.
With its spindly legs, boxy parts, and shiny metallic covering, the LM looked like an elaborate invention cartoonist Rube Goldberg might have drawn. It was about 23 feet tall and its long legs could fold inward so it could be stored in the Saturn V launch vehicle.
The LM was strictly designed for function so it could land us on the Moon and get us off the Moon with minimum weight. The odd, unglamorous look of the LM wasn’t important; it didn’t need to be streamlined and aerodynamic because it was going to fly in the Moon’s airless, reduced gravity. And since it wasn’t going to return to Earth, it only needed to be strong enough to withstand the lunar landing.
The work Fred and I were doing was critical. We needed to make sure that this spacecraft was going to function efficiently and be completely safe on the Moon. We tested it over and over again from the astronaut’s point of view so that it was sensible to use and practical to fly. Fred and I checked and rechecked the cabin area for the location of instruments and gauges so that everything was easy to reach. We also had to conduct many tests of the vehicle in an altitude chamber that had zero air pressure.
After the Spider, eight more Lunar Modules were built: Snoopy, Eagle, Intrepid, Aquarius, Antares, Falcon, Orion, and Challenger.
Training, Training, and More Training
“In order to equip each astronaut with an understanding of space-related problems and the knowledge he will need to solve them, a continuing program of astronaut training activities is conducted.” —Deke Slayton, NASA director of flight crew operations, 1968
It took a great deal of study and preparation to fly 240,000 miles to the Moon and then 240,000 back home again. For each mission the Apollo teams rehearsed for many months.
As astronauts in training, we practiced indoors, outdoors, on land, underwater, in the air, and, of course, in the many different devices that simulated the spacecraft we would eventually fly one day. We were launched, dropped, spun, and dunked in a variety of unique conditions. We did all of this ahead of time so we could experience the many sensations, noises, and vibrations of space flight as well figure out how it would feel to work in the weightlessness of space and the reduced gravity of the Moon.
Figuring out how to be prepared and survive in different environments was something I learned when I was a Boy Scout growing up in New Mexico. It’s interesting to note that of the 12 men who walked on the Moon, 11 were Boy Scouts. And now I was learning all sorts of new survival skills in preparation for my journey to the Moon. The astronauts had to be fully prepared for so many different tasks—being able to operate different kinds of spacecraft, being able to live and work in the spacecraft, landing on the Moon, working on the Moon, and then flying home. We also needed to know how to calmly handle any kind of problem or crisis we might encounter in space. None of this was taken lightly. It was serious stuff.
Exploring the Moon on Earth
A big part of our training was to figure out what it was going to be like to walk and work on the Moon once we got there. And the best way to learn about this unusual lunar environment was to travel to places around the world that were barren like the Moon and that also had craters.
NASA arranged for us to have geology field trips (GFTs) all over the planet, and I was amazed to learn about the many unusual “moon-like” worlds right here on Earth. From Texas to Iceland, we traveled to enormous craters, barren deserts, canyons, caverns, and areas with volcanic eruptions.
On our many GFTs we collected, measured, inspected, documented, and photographed all sorts of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. We were learning a lot about many different kinds of rocks so we could be the “eyes and ears” of geologists when we were on the Moon collecting Moon rocks.
One of my most memorable trips was to the volcanically active and very remote region of central Askja, Iceland, in July 1967. Known for its volcanic craters called calderas, this region had a very rocky terrain with black volcanic sand, as well as a large lake and hot springs. It was a misty, surreal place unlike anything I’d ever seen in my travels. And because we were there during the summer it seemed like the sun never set.
Another one of our major field trips was to the enormous Nördlinger Ries Crater in Bavaria, Germany, in August 1970. This large round depression on Earth was created by the impact of a gigantic meteorite millions of years ago. At Nördlinger Ries we were able to study rock formations that would be similar to those on the Moon also created by meteorite impacts.
We also explored other sites such as the Grand Canyon and the Meteor Crater in Arizona; the Big Bend region of west Texas; Bend, Oregon; Katmai, Alaska; Valles Caldera and Zuni Salt Lake, New Mexico; Pinacates, Mexico; the B
ig Island of Hawaii; Craters of the Moon in Idaho, and even areas of the Nevada Test Site.
We worked for many months in the field and essentially earned the equivalent of a master’s degree in geology in field training. This was a whole new area of study in my life, and I thought it was incredibly intriguing and helpful.
The Vomit Comet and the Torture Chamber
In addition to managing to work and survive in extraterrestrial places, we needed to be able to travel in our high-powered, rocket-based spacecraft. Our bodies needed to be able to withstand unusual G-forces, as with the liftoff of our rocket, or with zero gravity (zero G), which is the reduced gravity of being in space.
To experience the weightlessness of zero G, we either flew in high-speed aircraft or we went underwater. And to experience more than one G (increased gravity), as with liftoff, we’d spin incredibly fast in a centrifuge.
During what’s called parabolic training, the astronauts had the opportunity to feel short periods of weightlessness. We were able to do this in what we liked to refer to as the Vomit Comet because some of the guys would feel nauseous and toss their cookies, so to speak. We’d climb aboard a KC-135 aircraft that would shoot us up high in a steep trajectory and then descend rapidly in a free fall so we’d have about 20 to 60 seconds of zero G weightlessness, allowing us to float around the padded cabin. We practiced different maneuvers in the Vomit Comet wearing our space suits, and sometimes we’d take along lunar equipment, like the modularized equipment transporter (MET), to see how lugging this cart would feel in reduced gravity.
We also traveled to the naval base in Warminster, Pennsylvania, for training in the Johnsville centrifuge. We’d reluctantly climb in a steel orb called the Gondola, which was about 10 feet in diameter and suspended at the end of a long metal arm. Once we were buckled in, the device would spin us around and around at a G-force that would simulate rocket liftoff and reentry into the atmosphere. Nobody liked getting into this bizarre device that some of us nicknamed the “wheel,” the “torture chamber,” or the “gruesome merry-go-round.” But it gave us valuable information about how our bodies responded to movement, spinning, and the feeling of a heavy weight pressing against the body as happens during liftoff.
Zero G Under the Sea
Of course, one of the best places an astronaut can feel the weightlessness of zero gravity is underwater, so we were trained as scuba divers at the US Naval School for Underwater Swimmers in Key West, Florida. This training gave us an opportunity to learn how to navigate an aquatic environment; we learned basic principles like how to breathe in a strange environment that has no air, and how to become accustomed to new and unusual environments like the Moon. This training also prepared us for the time our space capsule would reenter Earth’s atmosphere and splash down in the ocean.
Braised Boas for Lunch?
It wasn’t a sure thing that our Command Module would be able to plummet from space and soar perfectly through Earth’s searing atmosphere to splash down at a specific location in the ocean. That was the plan, but in the event our capsule didn’t hit its watery target, or that it needed to return to Earth quickly, we needed to be prepared to survive in a variety of remote, hostile environments like the jungle or the desert. So, another important aspect of our work was survival training.
In June 1967, I was part of a small group of astronauts who spent four days in the Panama Jungle Survival School, near the Panama Canal. We first went to a classroom in the jungle where we learned survival basics such as how to build a simple shelter, how to find and prepare food and water, and how to hike and navigate through the dense, rugged rain forest. Part of our classroom lessons included being treated to a “jungle buffet” consisting of foods such as boa, fried rat, iguana, hearts of palm, and taro root.
After this basic instruction, we were dropped off in the jungle via a helicopter, and we grouped ourselves into three-man teams like our Apollo crews. It was our job to scout down a campsite and then build a lean-to using large palm leaves to protect us from the scorching sun and drenching rain. Our only supplies were items such as a first-aid kit and a parachute, which were items we would have with us on our spacecraft during our missions.
For the few days we were on our own, we mostly ate plant-based foods and we intentionally avoided eating things like bugs, frogs, worms, and other creepy crawlers. I remember chopping down a palm tree in extremely hot weather to find the edible inner core, the heart of palm, which most of us did eat.
And then, a few months later during the scorching month of August 1967, I traveled to the desert of Pasco, Washington, for survival training in approximately 110-degree temperatures. Here, along with a small group of astronauts, I spent two days in a classroom learning different survival techniques before spending three long, hot days in the desert. The only items we were allowed to take with us were a survival kit, a parachute, and three-and-a-half quarts of water. The parachute turned out to be very handy on this trip; we draped it around our bodies like a flowing robe to protect our skin from the sun. We also braided strips of the parachute to make a twine, and we used another part of the parachute to make a tent.
Because water is so crucial in the dry desert, we learned how to make a solar still to collect potable water, and how to squeeze moisture from a cactus. There were slim pickins for dinner unless anybody felt like a meal made from snakes, lizards, ants, rabbits, or birds—if you could snare them.
Learning to survive in different regions of the world wasn’t easy, but it was essential training so that we could survive no matter where our spacecraft landed us back on Earth. This training was also helpful in teaching us how to cope and adapt to unknown environments.
Spacecraft Simulators
We also had to know ahead of time about every big and small detail that would go right, as well as every little thing that might go wrong.
To learn this, a great deal of our training revolved around rehearsing what we were about to do in space, in exact replicas of our spacecraft. We often worked in Command Module and Lunar Module simulators to give us an idea of how to pilot the spacecraft that would take us to the Moon and back. We spent months rehearsing in these two simulators, so we had a feel for how we would sit, how we would sleep and eat, how we would pilot the spacecraft, and how we would communicate with the many individuals back at Mission Control in Houston.
The Command Module simulator gave us the opportunity to simulate our flight from liftoff to landing. Its console was identical to our real one with switches, displays, dials, controls, and communication equipment. It even had a realistic view out of the window created with a motion picture. In this device we would simulate countdown and launch—and then we’d fly into Earth orbit, go into translunar flight, orbit the Moon, come within feet of a lunar landing, complete a spacecraft rendezvous, and then return home with reentry and splashdown.
In the Lunar Module simulator we could practice a simulation of a lunar landing and imitate flying over the lunar surface, selecting a landing site, and descending and landing on the Moon. We’d then practice flying back to the Command Module.
We also used these simulators to work out all sorts of serious problems we might encounter along the way. This was crucial to learn. Our training instructors would lead us through moment-by-moment scenarios of our Moon missions. At first we’d fly a program straight through without problems. But then, the trainers intentionally tried to challenge us. They would throw in horrific problems for us to solve, like a meteorite hitting our spacecraft or a malfunction in our control systems. It was our responsibility to quickly figure out how to respond to these crises and get used to solving problems in space.
Flying Beds and Mock Moon Rocks
Alan Shepard got a chance to train for our Moon landing in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV), which some people called the “Flying Bedstead,” because it looked like an old brass bed frame. This device could actually lift off and fly about 500 feet above the Earth. I never flew this vehicle, but I didn’t mind
because it was quite dangerous to maneuver.
Many lunar surface simulations were rehearsed at Cape Kennedy in Florida in a specially constructed training area located behind the NASA administrative buildings. We would practice our work wearing pressure suits and backpacks, and we’d rehearse setting up equipment we would later use on the Moon. We often practiced how to pick up Moon rocks by hand or with specially designed handheld equipment. Working in the sweltering heat of the Florida sun was tough, and on some days I would lose up to 10 pounds just from sweating.
The Successes and Failures of Space Travel
Although the Apollo lunar missions were extremely exciting, there were always risks and potential fatalities. We all knew this—my boss, my colleagues, my family, everyone. There were inherent dangers in traveling beyond Earth’s orbit and especially in going the distance to the Moon.
My military experience in the Korean War and as a test pilot had prepared me to handle a great deal of dire situations, and I was accustomed to solving difficult problems in flight. I’d been shot at. I’d had equipment break on me. And I knew there were times I was in really tough situations. But if I wanted to be an astronaut, I needed to come to terms with the potential of danger or death. And I did.
Space was a whole new frontier, and there were many unknowns to figure out along the way. We worked hard, had solid contingency plans, and always hoped for the best. But sometimes we failed.
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