The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 (21 page)

In the early years after the first lunar landing, Aldrin lingered uneasily in the shadow of Neil Armstrong.
Apollo 11
crewmate Michael Collins commented on Aldrin’s self-imposed dilemma: “Fame has not worn well on Buzz. I think he resents not being the first man on the Moon more than he appreciates being second.” Aldrin has candidly discussed
post-Apollo 11
struggles: “The transition from ‘astronaut preparing to accomplish the next big thing, to astronaut telling the last big thing,’ did not come easily to me.”

“I moved from drinking to depression to heavier drinking to deeper depression,” Aldrin recalled.

Aldrin eventually achieved sobriety and became an active member of
Alcoholics Anonymous,
as well as a staunch advocate for the treatment of mental illness. Aldrin’s personal struggles were dramatized in the 1976 television movie,
Return to Earth;
actor Cliff Robertson portrayed the famed astronaut.

Aldrin is a dedicated advocate of private-sector space exploration and future manned missions to the Moon and Mars. He has proposed establishment of a Moon base and development of
Lunar Cyclers
—a series of vehicles continuously orbiting the Earth and Moon, which would be utilized for transportation of space crews and cargo. Aldrin, who has proposed construction of permanent colonies on the Moon and Mars, believes that a manned mission to Mars is feasible by July 20, 2019—the 50
^th
anniversary of
Apollo 11’s
lunar landing.

Time will tell if Aldrin’s proposal for a “unified space vision” for the 21
^st
century will come to fruition. A poll released in June of 2010 revealed that the American public, by a margin of 50 to 31 percent, favored less government focus on space exploration, in light of the country’s troubled economy. The poll findings were consistent with the Obama Administration’s decision to outsource a significant portion of future space research and development to the private-sector.

In spite of Aldrin’s personal struggles and self-doubts, his historical legacy is firmly entrenched. A Moon crater near the
Apollo 11
landing site is named in his honor, along with
asteroid number 6470.
He has been awarded honorary degrees from six universities, and was the recipient of the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
and
Robert Collier Trophy.
In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Aldrin to the Commission on the Future of the United States’ Aerospace Industry.

Like his
Apollo 11
crewmates, Michael Collins never again flew in space after the inaugural lunar mission. He departed NASA in January of 1970, and was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, a position he occupied for two years. He was later named Director of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum, and eventually became the Undersecretary for the Smithsonian Institute. By the time he retired from the Air Force in 1978, Collins had achieved the rank of Major General.

Collins has authored a handful of books, including
Carrying the Fire, Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places, Liftoff,
and
Mission to Mars.
He is also an accomplished watercolor artist, having painted scenes of the Everglades, near his home, as well as portraits of various aircraft he has flown over the course of his distinguished career. Collins now often refuses to sign his art work, after learning profiteers were re-selling the autographed portraits at inflated prices.

By the end of 1994, Collins had accumulated 5,000 hours of flying time, including 266 hours in space.
Asteroid number 6471
bears Collins’ name, and he has been awarded the
NASA Distinguished Service Medal,
the
Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross,
and the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Along with his
Apollo 11
crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins was honored with a star on Hollywood’s
Walk of Fame.

Apollo 11
Flight Director, Gene Kranz, was named Deputy Director of NASA Mission Operations in 1974, followed by promotion to the full directorship in 1983. In December of 1993, during his final days at Mission Control, Kranz supervised the space shuttle crew that repaired the
Hubble
space telescope. Kranz retired from NASA in March of 1994.

In February of 1970, less than a year after the
Apollo 11
lunar landing, the prime architect of the American space program, Wernher von Braun, moved from Huntsville, Alabama to Washington D.C. to become the Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA. Von Braun soon discovered that he missed being part of hands-on rocket development: “I felt like a mushroom—they kept me in the dark; once in a while, the door would open for some fertilizer to be shoveled in, and then the door would shut again.” Two years later, frustrated by the cancellation of the
Apollo
Project, diminished enthusiasm for a manned mission to Mars, and decreased funding for the space program, von Braun left NASA to become Vice-President of Engineering for the aerospace company,
Fairchild Industries.

Wernher von Braun died of cancer on January 16, 1977, and was buried in Alexandria, Virginia. A lunar crater was named in his honor—a permanent tribute to the rocket scientist’s essential role in the American space program. In his lifetime, von Braun was awarded 12 honorary Doctorate degrees, and was the founder of the Research Institute at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In spite of the remarkable feats of von Braun’s rocket team, dark shadows have loomed over their careers. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, many influential Jewish leaders protested that the German rocket scientists should be punished as ex-Nazis, rather than lionized as innovators in rocket technology. In 1973, when most of the original German-born employees of NASA were let go as part of the
post-Apollo
reduction in work force, there was little sympathy among those who accused them of being unreformed anti-Semites.

Even the famed von Braun could not fully escape this controversy. In 1976, a year before the rocket scientist’s death, influential friends and colleagues lobbied President Gerald Ford to award von Braun the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Ford declined to present the award, likely influenced by a memorandum prepared by his advisor, David Gergen: “Sorry, but I can’t support the idea of giving (the) Medal of Freedom to (a) former Nazi whose V-2 was fired into over 3,000 British and Belgian cities. He has given valuable service to the U.S. since, but frankly, he has gotten as good as he has given.”

In 1984, Arthur Rudolph, who served as the
Saturn V
Project Manager during the height of the Space Race, was identified as a
war criminal
by Nazi hunters. The U.S. Department of Justice re-examined Rudolph’s government file, which was compiled at the time of his arrival from Germany in 1945. One of the file’s incriminating documents described the German as “100 percent Nazi” and “a dangerous type.” Rudolph was subsequently accused of “working thousands of slave laborers to death,” as well as concealing his involvement in the crimes. To avoid prosecution, the 77-year-old retired rocket scientist agreed to renounce his American citizenship and return to Germany, where he remained until his death in 1995. Believing the rocket scientist had been wrongly accused, Rudolph’s defenders unsuccessfully lobbied for restoration of his citizenship.

The historic relics of the
Apollo 11
mission remain on permanent display. The quarantine trailer, flotation collar, and capsule righting spheres are housed at the
Udvar-Hazy Center Annex
near Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. The heat-scarred command module,
Columbia,
is on display at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum.

Today, approximately 750 pounds of Moon rock and soil, collected from six different lunar landing sites, are housed in locations throughout the world. Some of the lunar rock samples are older than any geological specimens discovered on Earth, suggesting meteoric origin. In recognition of its age, one lunar specimen bears the name
Genesis Rock.
Another lunar rock, first discovered at
Tranquility Base,
is named
Armalcolite,
in honor of the
Apollo 11
crew. In 1984, after thoroughly analyzing the accumulated lunar rock and soil samples, a study group issued a consensus report endorsing the
Giant Impact Theory
as the most likely explanation for the origin of the Moon.

For those skeptics who doubt that American astronauts actually landed on the Moon, photographic images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter offer an inarguable rebuttal. The photographs, taken in July of 2009, from an altitude of 13 to 15 miles, offer definitive proof of the
Apollo
Moon landings. Images of
Tranquility Base
clearly show the
Eagle’s
descent engine on the lunar surface. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s principle investigator, Mark Robinson, enthusiastically described the photographs: “The
LROC
team anxiously awaited each image. We were very interested in getting our first peak at the lunar module descent stages just for thrill—and to see how well the cameras had come into focus. Indeed, the images are fantastic and so is the focus.”

Additional photographs were taken of the remaining
Apollo
landing sites. Discarded scientific instruments and the astronaut’s footprints are clearly visible at the location of the
Apollo 14
landing.
Apollo 17’s
moon buggy and its tire tracks are visible in another series of photographs.

The Space Race is broadly defined as a 12-year competition between the United States and Soviet Union, beginning with the launch of
Sputnik
in October of 1957, and ending with the
Apollo 11
lunar landing in July of 1969. Incredible sums of money were spent on the space program during this epic contest between Capitalism and Communism. The
Apollo
program cost 25.4 billion dollars, and the price tag for
Apollo 11
alone, was 355 million dollars. In 1965 and 1966, the high water marks for NASA expenditures, approximately four cents out of every American tax dollar were spent on the space program. At the peak of America’s quest to land a man on the Moon, space was Florida’s third largest industry, behind tourism and citrus fruit. In the years since the conclusion of the Space Race, the true value of the costly space program has been vigorously debated. Was it an investment in mankind’s future or an expensive war of image and innovation waged against the Soviet Union?

Without a doubt, politics played a prominent role in propagating space exploration. Skilled politicians, most notably John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, capitalized on their countrymen’s fears of Soviet nuclear annihilation to push forth a bold and costly initiative to land a man on the Moon. While manned space flight was reflective of the American spirit of exploration and a source of national pride, critics often cite politics and money as the prime motivators. Space historian, Gerard J. Degroot, summed up the feelings of many skeptics: “…The decision was based not on science, but cold hard politics. McNamara (Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson) needed to save the aerospace industry. Johnson wanted to restore American prestige. Congress worried about losing influence in the third world. Senators wanted fat contracts for their states. Kennedy needed to rescue his image (in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco). Everyone wanted to beat the Russians.”

At the same time, the technological legacy of the space program is indisputable. Weather tracking satellites, global positioning devices, bar codes (which were used by NASA to track parts), cordless tools, satellite dishes, smoke detectors, newly developed synthetic materials (including epoxies, graphite, and the popular lubricant,
WD-40)
, diabetic insulin pumps, improved water filtration systems, and faster, more powerful computers are among the progeny of the American space program.

It is difficult to overlook the psychological implications of
Apollo’s
legacy. By the late 1960s, many Americans had grown disillusioned by seemingly endless domestic and international problems. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon, for a brief moment, nearly every American felt enormous pride. Walter Cronkite, who repeatedly provided the nation with eyewitness accounts of the Space Race, perhaps summed it up best: “The 1960s, when we first launched humans into space and went to the Moon, were in other ways a drain on our spirit. The civil rights battles, the frightening divisiveness of the Vietnam War, the horrible assassinations—they drained the American spirit. It’s no exaggeration to say the space program saved us.”

After
Project Apollo,
space exploration no longer commanded the attention it enjoyed during the 1960s. Flights of the space shuttle, unmanned explorations of distant planets, and experiments undertaken on the International Space Station have been frequently buried in the back pages of contemporary newspapers. Routine television programming is no longer preempted by rocket launches or live broadcasts from space.

The novelty of space exploration is now overshadowed by a plethora of new technologies and distractions, including cable and satellite television, lightening fast computers, sophisticated electronic games, smart phones, and the Internet, to name a few. Except for rare occasions, like the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans infrequently experience a sense of national unity.

In an age where the war against terror, political squabbles, and economic uncertainty dominate the headlines, it is comforting to revisit that Sunday in July of 1969, when the world celebrated the news:
The Eagle has landed.

.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books:

Aldrin, Buzz.
Reaching for the Moon.
Collins, 2005.

Aldrin, Buzz.
Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon.
Harmony Books, 2009.

Aldrin, Edwin E., Jr.
Return to Earth.
Random House, 1973.