The night before the flight, Jim Rathmann also threw a party for my family and friends. I couldn’t attend, of course, because we were watched far too closely at that point to sneak out, but I did get to chat with close friends over the phone. I remember thinking that this could be the last time I talked to them. However, the concern was less for myself. I strongly felt that if something bad happened and we died on the flight, it wouldn’t bother me. Danger came with the job. It would have really bothered me if I were the person who caused it. I think we all felt that way. None of us ever wanted to be the one who caused a major accident or incident. I never wanted to be the one my colleagues pointed fingers at and said, “Hey, you screwed up.”
Even though we were in quarantine, we could still keep ourselves sharp with some flying. We’d head over to Patrick Air Force Base, just south of our launch site, making sure not to interact with anyone on the way. Then we flew around in T-38s, which allowed us to have fun and shake off tension. There is a lot of pressure right before a flight, and flying allowed me to relieve it. Additionally, there was talk about people feeling disoriented, dizzy, and sick in weightlessness. I tried to put my inner ear through as many weird sensations as possible in a jet, hoping to prevent any motion sickness. I would roll, spin, and have fun. I don’t know if it helped, but it was a great way to blow off steam.
The last thing I wanted to do was crash, so I was particularly careful not to do anything crazy. Naturally we couldn’t fly too close to our launchpad, but I took the time to look over in that direction, miles away. What I could see was spectacular.
From a distance, I could easily spot two things. One was the Vehicle Assembly Building, where the Saturn V rocket was assembled. The largest one-story building in the world, it dwarfed everything in the area, except for one other, more temporary landmark. The gleaming white Saturn V rocket looked like a toy from ten miles away, but it was still very visible. As I flew closer and compared it to the surrounding landscape, the scale really hit me. Our rocket was enormous.
More than 360 feet tall, the length of one and a half football fields, the Saturn V was on top of a launchpad that pushed the tip of the rocket to about 500 feet above the coastal scrub. It was incredible to think I would soon be sitting on top of this leviathan. I took time to study it and drink in the experience.
The first stage of the Saturn V was enormous and squat, more than 130 feet tall, with five engine exhaust nozzles, each so big a person could crawl inside one of them. Capable of creating millions of pounds of thrust, the first stage could shove the entire rocket stack most of the way into space.
Despite its enormous size, that first stage wasn’t enough. Above it sat a second stage, more than 80 feet tall, to thrust us through the upper atmosphere. When the first stage ran dry, it would fall away as the second stage ignited its own five engines and slammed us upward.
The second stage could get us most of the way into orbit and was the last part of the rocket to fall back down through the atmosphere. Everything else would go to the moon. Above that second stage was a slimmer third stage, almost 60 feet tall, with one big engine that would get us into Earth orbit. Once there, that engine would relight to accelerate us out to the moon.
Above these three giant stages, I could see where the rocket again tapered in, this time quite dramatically. I knew that inside this flared fairing sat the Falcon lunar module, its legs folded up, bolted in, and protected for the ride into space. Then, at the very top, looking tiny compared with the rest of the rocket, was our command and service module. Perched beneath a launch escape tower, designed to pull us safely away if anything went wrong with the rocket beneath us, was the Endeavour.
It was amazing to think that it would only take a few minutes for most of this huge, precision-constructed Saturn V rocket to do its job. Then it would be thrown away. Within the first day of the mission, two of the three stages would be in shredded pieces at the bottom of the ocean, while the other would be condemned to a collision course with the moon. Our Endeavour was the only piece of the spacecraft that would return, and even then it would never be used again.
Reluctantly, I turned my T-38 away from the Saturn V gleaming in the distance and back to the airbase. The scale of the rocket had made me philosophical about my small part in an enormous program and an enormous concept. The idea of voyaging to another world was something much bigger than us as mere people. It was worth more than human lives. In that moment, I felt deeply that I was a small piece of something transcendent—something wonderful. I was ready to fly.
The night before launch, still in quarantine, we had a last supper with our backup crew and support crew, plus some select engineers and technicians. The chef prepared a wonderful meal, accompanied by a couple of bottles of champagne. We eventually sent him out to get a couple more bottles. It certainly took the edge off. After I made a few final phone calls to some of the pre-launch parties going on around town, I fell into a dreamless sleep, comfortable and happy, fooling myself into thinking that tomorrow would be just another day. I surprised myself by being so relaxed.
But who was I kidding? Tomorrow would be a very different kind of day. Space beckoned.
CHAPTER 8
LAUNCH
You never forget launch day. Finally, your mission is about to begin. You are in a special zone, like an athlete walking out for an Olympic event. Whatever happens, you know the day will be extreme and unforgettable.
It was Monday, July 26, 1971. Deke Slayton woke me up around 4:30 a.m. inside our windowless crew quarters at the Cape. I’d slept well and was ready to go. It was only a short walk to the medical room, where a flight surgeon gave me a brief physical. I’d had a physical every five days for the last three weeks and—once again—the doctors found nothing wrong with me.
I was not keen on the doctors and their tests. I remembered when Wally Schirra told me a story about the urine sample he’d given just before his Gemini flight. He asked the doctor why they needed another sample and was told it would be carefully analyzed and compared to a postflight sample to see if any changes took place in the flight. When Wally visited that same flight surgeon’s office six months later, just for kicks he walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. His sample still sat in there, untouched.
But I was delighted to see Dee O’Hara, our astronaut nurse. Dee came to the program long before I arrived. She started at the same time as the Mercury astronauts and quickly became good friends with them. While our flight surgeons came and went, Dee was always there for us. Officially, she checked each astronaut just before every single manned launch. Unofficially, we also went to her with any minor ailments because we knew we could trust her. She was kind enough to look out for our wives and kids too.
Since my divorce, I had come to know Dee even better. We palled around together; there was quite a bond there. I cared for her like you care for a close sibling. I was very pleased to see her that morning for my final medical checks.
I was behind a stall providing a urine sample and figured it was time for a bit of good-natured fun.
“Hey, Dee,” I called out from behind the partition, “I’m stuck. Can you come and give me a little help?”
“Dream on, Al!” Dee replied with a laugh. “By the way, I know where I plan to watch the launch from today, but how about you?”
“Gee, I have no idea,” I quipped back. “Maybe I’ll head down in the direction of the beach.”