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 there 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.
In my day almost every astronaut was a test pilot, and we understood that accidents could happen. The shuttle was different: many shuttle astronauts came from academic science and engineering backgrounds, and Challenger even had a schoolteacher on board. Few were prepared for the possibility of death.
Seventeen years later another group of families waited at the Cape, looking for the Columbia space shuttle to glide in for a landing. I, too, was standing outside a store in a little town west of the Cape, scanning the skies in vain. The shuttle never made it home. Spaceflight will always be a dangerous and unforgiving business.
It just made the get-togethers we had as astronauts even more meaningful. The ASF has now become the focal point for reunions of old colleagues. Retiring shuttle astronauts have swelled our ranks, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of losing more and more of the original guys. Every couple of years, it seems, there is one more funeral, and one more voice I miss.
I had known Wally Schirra for almost forty years by that point, and his sense of fun never diminished. He was always full of jokes, particularly those sneaky “Gotchas.” So when the ASF organized a riverboat cruise down the Mississippi River in 2004 to raise money, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to pay him back.
I was on the cruise with three of the original astronauts, Wally, Scott Carpenter, and Gordo Cooper. Paying guests joined us on the ride to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the foundation. After two days on the river, we were ready to play our trick.
Scott, Gordo, and I hid in the bathroom of Wally’s guest room. The hotel manager and his female assistant climbed into Wally’s bed in what looked like a very compromising position. Then the ship’s host showed an unsuspecting Wally to his room.
Wally turned on the lights and let out a yell. The woman on the bed looked back at Wally and screamed so loud it could be heard the length of the ship. Wally jumped in shock, and stood there, frozen in surprise, his eyes wide. Then the manager in the bed looked at him and said “My God, you are Wally Schirra, the famous astronaut.” Reaching over to the bedside stand he picked up a copy of Wally’s memoirs, held it out and calmly asked, “Would you mind autographing this for me?”
That was our cue to burst out of the bathroom, as everyone in the room collapsed in laughter. Wally had to admit it was a world-class Gotcha.
Gordo passed away just a few months after the cruise. Three years later, we lost Wally. I was saddened but also gratified that my last memories of my astronaut colleagues are so positive and fun.
It might seem silly, after all these years, but when one of my colleagues turns to me after a successful ASF event and casually says, “Nice job, Al”—perhaps with a slap on the shoulder, too—it means the world to me. I let them down decades ago. Now, for the first time since my spaceflight, I’m getting those little nods of approval, a sense of belonging once again. It probably means more to me than to them, but that’s okay. I’ve completed the circle. I’m at peace.
My family thinks I am crazy to work so hard at a time of life when many people take it easy. But earning back this friendship and trust is perhaps the deepest and most driving force I have ever felt in my life. It’s something that I have to do.
As I explained earlier, I think running for Congress was more important to me personally than flying to the moon. When it comes to my public legacy, I think my work with the ASF will have a much greater long-term impact than my lunar mission. Going to the moon won’t be the most important thing in my life. If I can help a thousand of my country’s brightest students through college, they will make an enormous difference to the future of the world. That work is what drives me today. How can I retire?
Once I began to regain the approval of my colleagues, there was only one final step left for me. I needed to write this book. Forty years was a long time to hold in the full story. I didn’t have to wait that long. But I came from a large family where I learned to roll with the punches and try to get along. Not only did I not write the story down, I also didn’t talk about it with the public. When interviewers asked me about leaving NASA or the covers, I gave general answers with little detail.
But four decades is long enough. At some point the true story needed to be told. Now it’s done. I can look back on my moon flight with no lingering sense of unfinished business.
I still love to look at the moon. I think the moon is very comforting. When it rises, you know all is well.
I look at the big dark circles on its surface and think about how they got there. I wonder what the moon must have been like four billion years ago. I also try to imagine what Earth must have been like that long ago. It still amazes me to see that enormous ball out there floating around Earth, circling, always keeping the same face toward us.