Magnificent Desolation (10 page)

At the conclusion of the tour, we had a special dinner with President Nixon in the White House. He was quite interested in every aspect of our trip, and seemed genuinely concerned about our future plans. He said to Mike Collins, “I know you have been talking with Secretary Rogers about a position with the State Department.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike nodded. “I’m looking forward to that.”

“And, Neil, what is it that you want to do?” the President asked.

“I’d like to stay with NASA for a while, and maybe work in the aeronautics department.” It seemed odd to me that Neil wanted to divorce himself early on from space activities, and devote himself to aviation, but that was his heart and soul, so I didn’t fault him for that. Neil was a true test pilot; he enjoyed flying airplanes, running them through a variety of maneuvers, whether they were space-related or not.

The President turned to me, and asked about my plans. At the time I didn’t really know, but I was thinking of returning to the Air Force, and I could see myself as a role model for young airmen at the Academy, so the position of commandant of the Air Force Academy seemed appealing to me. I didn’t feel comfortable in voicing that to President Nixon at the time, but I did put in a good word for my dad. I suggested to the President that my father would make an excellent ambassador to Sweden.

At the time, the United States was not on the best of terms with the notoriously neutral country. Olaf Palme was the prime minister, and was strongly opposed to our involvement in Vietnam. From the U.S. standpoint, our government was not pleased that Sweden had welcomed those regarded as draft dodgers and deserters. I knew there was an opening in our embassy in Sweden, because during our round-the-world trip, we had not visited Sweden. We visited England, of course, where Neil had his roots, and Italy, where Mike had been born in Genoa, but rather than going to the homeland of my heritage, we went to Norway instead. It was not an accidental change in our itinerary. It was a statement.

I slept in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House that night, and the sense of history surrounding me inspired me to consider how I might best serve my country. Ever since my days at the Military Academy at West Point, where our motto was “Duty, Honor, Country,” service to my country has been a predominant motivation in my life. During our quarantine, Neil, Mike, and I had talked often about the “what next” question, and we decided that it would be selfish of us to
return to NASA and take positions back in the Apollo lunar flight rotation. The normal routine would have had us return to lunar training as a backup crew for a flight, possibly Apollo 14, then, two flights later, being the primary crew. Since Mike Collins had not actually set foot on the moon, he would no doubt have precedence for a mission that would get him back to the surface. Nevertheless, Neil, Mike, and I felt that the more noble gesture on our part would be to give other astronauts a chance to reach the moon. While we continued to work for NASA, we elected not to stay in the crew rotation cycle.

Besides, by that time, we had become in essence the public face of NASA. When anyone called the agency for a speaker, whether it was for a university symposium or a Little League baseball field dedication, we were always at the top of the list. No doubt, some people thought we could better serve America’s space program by representing it to the world. Nice thought, but we were trained as pilots, not as public-relations people, and of the three Apollo 11 astronauts, none of us was prepared to be a person under constant fire from the media, someone whose every word—even if it was nonsensical—instantly showed up in newspapers, magazines, and other media around the world. Imagine the biggest rock star or Hollywood celebrity dealing with the media feeding frenzy that happens nowadays; now multiply that exponentially and you have some idea of what we three PR novices experienced for months following the landing on the moon. NASA of course expected a barrage of interview requests and public appearance requests, but they never anticipated the physical and emotional drain the instant fame would put on men who had spent most of their adult lives in a cockpit.

T
HE TRANSITION FROM
“astronaut preparing to accomplish the next big thing” to “astronaut telling about the last big thing” did not come easily to me. For the previous eight years, from the time I had been studying rendezvous techniques at MIT, and working on my doctoral dissertation, which contained many of the ideas we incorporated in
the Gemini and Apollo space programs, my life had revolved around astronautics—not just talking about it, but doing it, getting ready for it, and making something happen. Now, as much as I understood that in America “heroes have duties,” talking about it was growing old quickly. Nevertheless, I was committed to doing my best, hoping to inspire other people through my experiences, especially the younger generation, who I hoped would take the exploration of space further than even I could imagine.

That’s why, in early January 1970, I resumed traveling from one end of the country to the other, making public appearances and giving speeches on behalf of NASA. Following my appearance on NBC’s flagship morning news program, the
Today Show
, host Hugh Downs and I discussed the negative response Neil, Mike, and I had received at Marquette University. Hugh shared my consternation over the disenchantment of America’s high school and college-aged youth. A few weeks later, outbreaks of deadly violence at Kent State and Jackson State universities brought the issue into Americans’ living rooms in graphic detail.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I felt compelled to find some way in which I could get involved—something that would offer a new challenge, as well as an opportunity to perhaps capitalize on some of the public’s familiarity with my name. My mind started to cogitate on the possibilities.

In February 1970, my father’s close friend, General Jimmy Doolittle, approached me about becoming a part of the board of directors of Mutual of Omaha, a once-venerable, well-known insurance company. The company perpetuated its clean-cut, wholesome image by hiring military heroes and other nationally known figures, although it was probably more popular for sponsoring an outdoorsman show,
Wild Kingdom
, on television each week, starring the legendary sportsman Marlin Perkins. Since retiring from the military, General Doolittle had been a member of Mutual’s board. “I’ll put in a good word for you,” he assured me.

Sure enough, at their annual meeting in February, Mutual of Omaha elected me to their board of directors. Board chairman and
chief executive officer of the company V. J. Skutt extolled my virtues. “Colonel Aldrin, the great astronaut and young man of good judgment and high principles, will help get our organization off to a flying start in new products and service for the decade ahead,” he told the press.
¹
Before long, Mr. Skutt would change his tune.

About the same time that I joined Mutual of Omaha, I also joined the board of Amvideo Corporation, a Massachusetts-based parent company of Annapolis CATV, Inc. Cable television was a fledgling industry at that time, with only a handful of stations operating around the country and even fewer with original programming. But I felt sure that the cable television industry held tremendous promise, so I looked at my involvement as an investment in my future.

NASA approved both of my corporate affiliations. The space program restricted astronauts’ outside business interests, tenaciously guarding the image of the program, so NASA’s imprimatur was important to me.

I
WAS BACK
in Houston on April 11, 1970, for the launch of
Apollo 13
, carrying astronauts Jim Lovell, John “Jack” Swigert, and Fred Haise to the moon for what was supposed to be America’s third landing on the lunar surface. The first two days of the mission went well, with the crew encountering and overcoming a few problems, but overall the trip was looking good. Some people around Mission Control were regarding it as the smoothest Apollo flight yet.

Then, shortly after 9:00 p.m. on April 13, 1970, about 200,000 miles from Earth, an oxygen tank exploded and the shrapnel punctured a second oxygen tank, causing that tank to fail as well, knocking out the
Apollo 13
command module’s electricity heat, lights, and water. With classic understatement, Jack Swigert poignantly reported the emergency: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

The astronauts soon discovered how serious the problem really was;
two of their three fuel cells, which were the spacecraft’s prime source of electricity, were lost. One oxygen tank appeared to be completely empty, and the oxygen in the second tank was depleting rapidly. Then, when Jim Lovell looked out the CM’s left window, he saw a truly frightening sight. “We are venting something out into space,” he reported to Houston. “It’s a gas of some sort.” Houston confirmed it was oxygen escaping from the second, and last, oxygen tank.

With the planned landing on the moon aborted, Mission Control frantically worked toward a “successful failure,” to bring the crew back home safely. It was no easy task, as they used the lunar module to power the command module back to Earth. Although the story has often been told, it is still a wonder of training, teamwork, and ingenuity that saved the lives of three brave astronauts.

As soon as the crisis developed, I received a flurry of phone calls. They had plenty of talented experts on hand at Mission Control, so they didn’t need me hanging around, but somebody suggested that Neil Armstrong and I go over to Jim Lovell’s mom’s home to be with her. Maybe we could allay some of her fears.

Neil and I were glad to help, so we went to the home of seventy-three-year-old Blanche Lovell. She welcomed us warmly and invited us in. “It’s so nice of you to come,” she said. “Are you boys part of the space program, too?” We stayed with her and watched the proceedings on television for a while, until some other friends and family members came to stay with her.

Apollo 13 left a lasting impression on America’s space program. Many people regarded bringing back Jim, Jack, and Fred alive as miraculous; from my perspective, it was a tremendous ending for a failed mission. That’s what our teams at NASA and the backup crews were trained to do—to deal with almost any possible problem that might occur in space. The people who worked so feverishly to get our astronauts home were doing exactly what was expected of them, what they had trained for. Even in the face of the oxygen explosion and the aborted lunar landing, if the astronauts hadn’t come back safely, then the NASA system would have failed.

The often-used phrase regarding America’s space program has been: “Failure is not an option.” We all understand the concept that the equipment and the people need to perform as planned, with no miscues. But if failure is not an option, then you need to stay on the ground. Everything about space travel is subject to failure, and if it is worth doing, it will involve taking calculated risks. We had risks in Apollo 11 as well, and that mission could easily have turned out similar to Apollo 13, but thankfully it didn’t. Only the possible rewards of exploration make the risks tolerable.