klyde morris 7/23/09

Apollo 11 SPLASHDOWN! Watering the seeds of inspiration

"Stable 2" was the proper description for the Apollo 11 CM shortly after it jettisoned its parachutes and was left bobbing in the blue pacific. It was a moment when the vast majority of Americans were left satisfied at their nation's accomplishment and ambled back into their everyday lives with Apollo being a pleasant, but low priority memory. A sliver of the population carried disgust from the event as they felt all along that it "wasn't worth it." Some of us, although unable to fully evaluate it at the moment, had just had the seeds of inspiration that would alter our lives watered by the splash of that blue water.

The seeds of my spaceflight inspiration were actually planted long before Apollo 11. In fact, the circumstances that led me in the spaceflight direction began even before early Gemini missions- these circumstanced, however, began of a troubling note. I was in the second grade in the fall of 1964 when my parents were called in to meet with my teacher and were given some stunning news... "Wes can't read." My stunned parents were informed by my teacher that I was unable to read aloud, those captivating adventures of Dick and Jane and their fascinating dog Spot. My folks were told that they had to take me downtown to the Board of Education building to meet with a "Reading Specialist." In 1964, such a visit to such a person was a real embarrassment- something to be done quietly and in the shadows- because it meant your kid was defective.

Thus my parents meekly took their defective son downtown. We entered the big, dark, building with its echoing hallways and met the lady who was "The Specialist." She was very nice and led us to a doorway that opened to a big room. She directed me to go inside and wait while she had a few words with my parents. The room had living room styled furniture and was filled... FILLED... with books. The books were seemingly tossed around everyplace and were of all sorts of subjects. There was also one, almost unnoticeable feature in that room- a very large mirror on one wall. I walked around for about 90 seconds and then found a book on the Boeing 707. I sat down with it and started reading. Behind the mirror was the amazingly savvy "specialist" and my worried parents- watching my every move. "See..." she told my folks, "he can read- he's just bored with Dick and Jane." She also informed them that the book I had was on the 6th grade level. My mom asked about my teacher's concern that I could not read aloud. In the following discussion my folks were informed of the difference between "Can't" and "Won't" (interestingly, I'm currently working on my 14th book for publication... and I still do not read aloud to the public... ever.) My folks were given marching orders to get me anything... ANYTHING... to read that I was interested in- comic books, Mad Magazine, science books, sports books... anything that I was interested in. Mom and especially dad were then spring loaded to respond to what sparked interest in me. Some of the material that my folks fed to me included spaceflight and I had shown interest in that subject. Later- along came Apollo 11 and my folks knew they'd hit the jackpot.

Several weeks after the splashdown, my dad stopped into a Gulf station for gas again. Once again, he came back from paying and he handed me something. This time it was far better than that infernal paper LEM kit, this was... a book. When I opened that book- titled "We Came In Peace" it was as if someone had thrown LH2 into the sparks of my new found spaceflight passion. Even looking at the publication today, it is likely one of the finest illustrated and composed presentations of the nuts and bolts of the effort to get to the moon that has ever been produced. I lived in that book to the point where my 6th grade teacher told me never to bring it to school again... today I own two copies.

Thanks to Project Apollo, and Apollo 11 specifically, my parents found the key to the one thing that would alter the path on which their son would travel for the rest of his life. Along that path other sparks of inspiration would show their effects, but the foundation would be firmly constructed in that summer of 1969. I'm sure there are others who say the same thing, and who have stories similar to mine. NASA, on the other hand, saw their decline begin at that same moment. Caught in the bluster of ill political winds, NASA had its single weakness exploited- NASA did not have tooting their own horn in their job description.

Spaceflight is as much about Inspiration as it is about Exploration. I was inspired by Apollo- inspired to the point where, in a social strata where the norm was that you grew up, maybe you graduated from High School, you went to work in the "shop," you got married and your kids did the same... I directed my life toward technology and toward a technical education. There's nothing wrong with workin' in the shop, or in industrial related jobs- hell, my dad was 37 years on the railroad and I was always proud of him. That said- Apollo showed me a different direction, and instilled an attitude in me that I could do anything, especially when people told me that I could not. Inspiration is the greatest benefit of human spaceflight. When people quack about the "cost" they need to be asked what value does changing a kid's life for the better have?

As the Apollo 11 CM bobbed in the pacific and its crew huddled behind the window of the MQF while Nixon stood outside pretending to be enthused yet all the while actually planning to cancel the entire Apollo program, I was busy creating. Using a common matchbox, some balsa wood odds and ends and a jar of Testor's silver paint, I was making my own little MQF. When it was finished I went out onto the patio and caught three medium sized ants. Naming them Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins I locked their little helpless butts into quarantine- just like the Apollo 11 astronauts... minus the aircraft carrier and Nixon... of course. It was a good way for a 12 year old to mimic what held my imagination at that moment. The next morning I opened my matchbox MQF and found all three ant-stronauts stone cold dead. "Gee..." I thought to myself, "I hope the real astronauts do better."

Apollo 11- the day before splashdown... rocket fever

As it headed through it its last full day in space before reentry, an unexpected side effect of the Apollo 11 mission was a form or rocket fever that turned out to be very contagious. I caught mine, and 35 years later would actually turn it into a business.

In the afterglow of the first lunar landing, people sought out ways to satisfy their newly kindled interest in spaceflight and rockets. Some, who would otherwise never give a hoot about rockets, went out and bought rocket related items. One of those was a kid on my block by the name of Dennis. I was outside playing with my pals when the word came around that "Dennis is gonna launch a rocket!" Although given a stern warning "Don't you go near that thing!" by my mom, I hurried with the rest of the kids, down the block and stood across the street from Dennis' house. Dennis, who was about 4 grades older than me, came outside and was busy preparing a really cool looking, good sized rocket in his side yard. I had never seen such a thing- it was over a foot tall and pained in bright colors. Apparently inspired by the Apollo 11 mania, he had purchased and constructed this rocket. Of course these were the days when you had to actually "build" a flying model rocket as opposed to today when you can just go and buy one already built and in a blister pack- ready to fly and made in communist China. In the summer of 1969 all they made in communist China was... well... communists.

Dennis messed around for a protracted period as we all watched. Then he stuck a long metal rod into the grass, slid the rocket down it and lit the fuse. The sky over our subdivision of Sheridan Park was split with a loud "Wooooosh!" as the rocket raced into the heavens. Our necks snapped back and our mouths opened as we let out a chorus of "WHOA!" As the rocket arced over in its coast, I was expecting fireworks to burst out- instead there was a "pop" a puff of smoke and a parachute! Nothing ignites interest in a 12 year old like a parachute! Slowly the rocket swung on it's parachute as it drifted out over the corn field behind our block and vanished among the tall corn stalks. Dennis and every kid in the neighborhood, except me, charged into the corn after the rocket. I stood back- like I'd been told... ya' never knew if mom was watching and if I went in there and got blown up, after she'd told me not to, I'd really be in for it.

Sheridan Park had never seen anything like that rocket before. In fact I seriously believe that was the first model rocket ever launched in our subdivision. A long time passed, but eventually kids began to come out of the corn. At length, even Dennis came out and walked dejectedly, and empty-handed into his house. After several hours, I was sure that everyone else was out of the corn, and that was when I went in. Oddly, it took me just a few minutes to find the wayward rocket. There it sat, draped among the stalks, waiting to be recovered. I nabbed it and headed toward the edge of the corn. I took a minute to stash the rocket and then went home. My dad was sitting in the living room reading the paper and I went up and asked him if I found that lost rocket, could I keep it? Mom went into a tizzy right out of "A Christmas Story" saying everything other than I'd shoot my eye out. Dad, on the other hand, was far more in tune to his 12 year old son. He simply said that if I found it and I knew who it belonged to, I had to return it. With that I went directly to the spot where I'd stashed the rocket and took it to Dennis' house. I knocked on the door and when he answered I handed him his rocket and told him I'd found it. He just gave a "whatever" shrug and simply said "Thanks."

A few days after the flight of the Dennis rocket, my dad came home and handed me a box- it contained an MPC Flair Patriot flying model rocket! "Think ya' can build it?" he asked. I guess I drooled a "yeah." reply and he added, "Don't worry about your mother- it's okay." By mid August I had the rocket built and dad and I had gotten a briefing from the guy at the hobby store on how to set it up and fly it. Soon it was me who was punching holes in the sky over Sheridan Park- and a lot of holes at that and with all sorts of different rockets- usually of my won weird design. I never saw Dennis launch another rocket, but with my dad's help, our yard seemed like Cape Canaveral in 1960- the neighbors never knew what was going to come flying out of it or where it would be headed. From August 1969 to August 1973 when the neighborhood kids heard that "wooosh" sound they knew where go.

I ripped a few holes in the sky over Freeland, Michigan from 1974 to 1977, but gave up model rocketry in the fall of 77 so I could focus on real flying and a college education in Aeronautical Science. many years passed and I found myself no longer flying real airplanes and decided to take up model rockets again just for fun. The one time "for guy dweebs only" activity had, however, now turned into a family activity and females were not only participating in it, but often dominating. Today I sell my own line of model rockets from Sputniks to Saturns and even the Ares vehicles- business is good... and I am officially an Apollo spin-off... partly thanks to Dennis.

Apollo 11- the day after the "Moonwalk" Not bad for a nub

"Dips" and "Aps" were two terms that I had actually remembered from the Apollo 10 mission. DPS, or "dips" as Cronkite liked to say, stood for Descent Propulsion System and was a catch-all term representing the LEM's descent stage. APS stood for Ascent Propulsion System and functioned in a similar linguistic manner to describe the ascent stage. On the day following the EVA... or "moonwalk" as the public would forever call it... everyone was focused on the APS.

In an attempt to satisfy my newborn thirst for learning about Apollo, I spent most of the morning gathering studying every shred of spaceflight material that I had accumulated prior to the Apollo 11 flight. The result was meager at best. There I sat on my bedroom floor with a copy of "Life" from Apollo 10 featuring the LEM, two books from the Science Service- one on Man In Space and the other just titled "The Moon" plus a 1:144 LEM/CSM combination model that I'd gotten as a bonus for subscribing to the Science Service publications and, of course, that paper LEM that no one could assemble. It was clear... even to a 12 year old... that my reference collection needed to be beefed up a bit.

Every form of media carried triumphant images and stories of the previous evening's lunar EVA. The faces of the Apollo 11 crew were everywhere along with seriously outdated illustrations of the Lunar Module- often with the round, docking port, forward hatch that had been out of the equation for a half dozen years. In fact, you did not have to look hard to find the lunar event illustrated with the helicopter-style ascent stage lunar module from 1962. Clearly, I was not the only person who had been caught with a meager reference library- most of the news media had similar problems.

It had been made clear that morning, to anyone with a brain, that the engine on the Apollo 11 LEM's ascent stage had to function today in order for the "...two astronauts, Armstrong and Aldrin..." to get off of the surface of the moon. Every form of media had stated that fact over and over again through the night and into the morning. I spent a lot of time pondering the APS engine on my model... it was just a nub!... there had to be more to it than that?

After the previous day's landing, one of my uncles, who was a true know-it-all and life long BS'er, apparently sensed my newly sparked interest in the space program and did his best to show me he knew more than anyone else about the LEM. He went into a dramatic description about bolts and dies that held the two stages of the LEM together and how the ascent engine had to build up enough power to sheer those bolts through those dies in order for the two stages to separate and the astronauts to get off of the moon. Of course it was all BS, but I believed it for a while... that is... until the day that I concluded that if you wanted to learn about how a space vehicle works- you had to read about it rather than listen to what a grown up tells you. In later life, however, I was guilty of the same thing- when I told my nephew, who was here visiting Washington DC that we won the War of 1812 because the British got stuck in traffic on I-95 as they tried to get to Baltimore.

I sat and staged my model LEM hundreds of times that morning... didn't seem to be an issue with bolts and dies, but the ascent engine was still just a nub. As the TV coverage got close to launch, for the first time I sensed the element of real risk that is involved in spaceflight. You could hear it in the tone of Cronkite's voice and in the silence of Schirra. The countdown clock on the TV ticked away as we heard Buzz's voice, "...Abort Stage... Engine Arm to Ascent... Proceed..." Over the airwaves we heard a hollow "pop" of static followed by an unusual hiss. Somehow, that equated to me and I knew they'd lifted off. The chatter from Buzz confirmed this, but most assuring was the banter of relief from Cronkite and Schirra. As the animation showed the LEM's ascent stage climbing higher and higher with the APS blasting out a plume of white animated fire that was actually not visible at all, I pretend flew my plastic model, and looked at the nub of the engine. It had worked and the astronauts were on their way to LOR with the CSM... "not bad for a nub," I thought to myself.

Apollo 11, July 20, 1969 a life altering event and a paper LEM

Oddly, I recall that my first thought upon waking up on the morning of July 20, 1969 was that I did not want to miss the lunar landing. We had a family gathering to attend that afternoon in the nearby town of Freeland, Michigan and I was concerned that the TV at the home where the gathering would take place would likely be occupied by with Tigers baseball like it always was at such summer family get-togethers. My folks assured me that I had nothing to worry about, but I was far from convinced. Of course mom and dad knew full well that none of the networks would be carrying anything but the Apollo 11 landing, their 12 year old son, however, could not fathom such reasoning- I continued to fret.

Our family gathering that day had nothing to do with Apollo 11. The fact is that my younger brother and my cousin both shared close birth dates on the July calendar and it was decided to have a big cookout at my cousin's house in Freeland to celebrate them together. The trip there was considerable by the standards of a 12 year old- all the way across town and out to farm country. I had no way of knowing that four years later my own family would move from Saginaw out to Freeland and I would eventually graduate from Freeland High School- on that July sunday in 1969, it was a respectable road trip to me.

On the way out of town, dad stopped for gas at a Gulf station. He pumped in a few dollars worth, went inside to pay and upon returning handed me a large piece of card-stock paper. It had black and gold shapes printed all over it in a series of odd patterns. For a second or two I studied the sheet, then I recognized the two triangular windows of the LEM in among the patterns! Dad told me that they were giving these away at Gulf and you had to pop the pieces out and then you could fold it into a LEM model! GREAT! He also warned me not to start until we got to the party, so I wouldn't lose any of the pieces. All the way to Freeland I studied the sheet of paper as I sat in the back seat of dad's 66' metal flake navy blue, Buick Special. I was sure that making that paper LEM was far beyond any skills and abilities I possessed... and I was right about that.

By the time we got to the party the TV was already locked onto CBS and Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra were earning their pay. Unlike the launch, this time I sat on the floor in front of the TV, transfixed at everything that was happening. Here was the kid, well known as the one who rarely paid attention in the classroom, who was instantly bored by any reading assignment, who could not sit still long enough to focus on more than three arithmetic problems, who was always "out the window" rather than in the lesson, sitting there in full "learning mode." My parents and relatives were amazed. I watched each simulation of what was to come and soaked it in as the paper LEM model sat nearby waiting for someone... anyone... to start working on it.

Amid my new found focus on the technology of spaceflight, I became so engrossed in what was going on in the TV that I forgot to eat. The result was a nasty stomach pain, yet it was not enough to distract me from the mission broadcast. My mom eventually delivered a plate to me containing a hotdog and some beans... I don't recall eating it, but I'd sure I did... probably under threat that mom would turn off the TV if I didn't eat. Several folks, including my dad, an uncle and a few of my older cousins, came and sat with me- all of whom took a stab at assembling that accursed paper LEM... no one got very far.

As the Eagle went into PDI and began to arc toward the landing I was totally focused on that TV set. Odds are that there were people around me... lots of them... but I don't recall a single one. I do recall, however, every "GO" call relayed by Charlie Duke to the crew. I knew enough to recognize that "go" was good in the vernacular of spaceflight. The communications were peppered with static and break-ups and the series of computer alarms clearly did not seem right. Since the alarms did not seem to bother the crew, I wasn't worried either. I figured that NASA had planned and rehearsed every second of this operation- since that was what the newsmen on the TV had always told us that NASA did... of course I was wrong in that assumption... but hey, I was 12.

As the CBS simulation showed the LEM touching down, however, the air-to-ground voice did not match the simulation. Indeed the LEM was shown on the moon for quite a while before the video tape of the simulation was suddenly wound back to showing the LEM still in flight. I knew that was wrong, but reasoned that it was a CBS error and not a problem with the landing... I was wrong again... hey... I was 12... remember?

It has often been said by the engineers and crews that the landing of Apollo 11 was more significant than was the EVA. So it was for me- as I heard Charlie Duke say "...we copy ya' on the ground, ya' got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathin' again, thanks a lot." I knew that they had indeed landed on the moon. Around me my relatives clapped and cheered a bit, then went back to the party. My cousins who were near my age went back to running and playing. I simply sat there... thunderstruck... watching, listening, soaking it up like a sponge. I wanted to know more- for the first time in my whole life, I wanted to learn more- more about these vehicles, more about this program, more about that moon, more about space and how it all works. But- there was a problem... you see, no one who was not on that TV, no one who was at that family gathering with me, no one in my entire neighborhood... could teach it to me. In retrospect, at that moment in time, I already knew more about the space program than anyone else near me. If I was going to satisfy my new urge to learn more about the space program, I would have to teach myself.

The party broke up a few hours after the landing and I gathered up the parts of my paper LEM and we headed home. Just before we left they announced on the TV that the EVA would be moved up to around 10 pm that evening. It had originally been scheduled for the following morning, in fact President Nixon had already given all federal workers Monday off as a "Day of Participation" now they'd just have a nice day off. When we got home, my dad asked me to break out my little 50 power refractor telescope. We took it out into the backyard and set it up on the deck of our 4 foot deep above-ground pool, and pointed the lens toward the crescent moon.

When the EVA began, no one really knew what that grainy black and white image was of. In fact, it was upside down at first- but soon the folks at NASA flipped it over and before long we saw a boot followed by Neil Armstrong's shadow. I heard his words as he stepped onto the lunar surface and then I ran outside to look through the telescope... as if I was going to see something. While the EVA went on everyone gathered at our house... and we did have a sort of secondary family gathering going on, since most of my aunts, uncles and cousins lived within a block of my house... took turns running out to that stupid little telescope and looking up at the moon. Interestingly, four decades later I find that this same pointless exercise was going on all over the hemisphere at that same time.

I didn't make it through the entire EVA. I pretty much ran out of steam toward midnight and don't recall how I got to my bed. Odds are I fell asleep in the living room during Nixon's call or shortly there after... Nixon had that sort of influence on a space buff.

When I awoke, however, I would be a different kid than I was that morning- many others would as well. That damned paper LEM, however, never would get put together... 40 years later, it's probably still beyond my skills and abilities .

Apollo 11- the day before the landing

In between Friday and Saturday July 17th and 18th 1969, as Apollo 11 slipped silently from earth's gravitational influence and into the grip of the moon, most 12 year olds across the nation were doing exactly what I was doing- slipping silently from a summer Friday to a summer Saturday.

Saturday found Apollo 11 seeming to have ever annoying high gain antenna problems as they approached the moon and prepared for LOI. Communications were filled with static as the morning went on. Here on earth, the antenna on our family TV was set just right to catch the most important communication that a kid could receive on a Saturday morning- cartoons.

My Saturday's usually started at dawn with a non-cartoon- the Army's morning rerun of "The Big Picture." These were all outdated and often in black and white, but they had tanks and explosions- so what kid could resist? Then Saturdays really kicked in with Go-Go Gophers cartoon on channel 25 (UHF) at 8:00 followed by the Buggs Bunny and Road Runner Hour, which I tried never to miss. At 9:30 the cartoons went into "blah" mode with channel 25 airing Wacky Racers, channel 12 showing the Adventures of Gulliver and channel 5 playing Top Cat. Yet on a summer Saturday this mattered little as normally mom booted me out of the house to "Go outside and play" during the first 15 minutes of Road Runner anyhow.

On this Saturday we all knew that Apollo 11 was up there as the networks were broadcasting "Special Reports" on the LOI and any other activity they could break in for. As I recall, I was still in amazement of the previous day's video showing the inside of the LEM and the crew floating around. Outside, in on kid turff, one of the kids in the neighborhood had a sort of spaceship toy and kept buzzing it around. There was a real scarcity of "realistic" Apollo toys at this moment in history. Most were simply cheap plastic rockets that resembled 50s sci-fi special effects yet had the label "Apollo" hastily pasted on them to spike sales. In retrospect, I don't think any of the toy manufacturers really saw coming the wave "Apollo fever" that was currently sweeping the nation. We kids talked about tomorrow's moon landing, we pretended as best we could to be a part of that upcoming event, and yet we knew very little about what was actually happening. Still, some of us were beginning to deeply sense the importance of this moment and instinctively know that the next moment would be even more important. Perhaps it would be even more important than today's episode of "The Archies" cartoon... perhaps.

Of course the real classic season of 60s Saturday morning entertainment would not begin until the Fall of 69 when the three networks would release shows like "Hot Wheels" "Scooby Doo" "Banana Splits" and my personal favorite "The Pink Panther" which I liked because it was the sickest. There would also be the return of "The Monkees" to Saturday morning just to expand our horizons. All of these shows, however, would be a side bar to Apollo 12 rather than Apollo 11 but, by that time, Project Apollo would be well on its way to cancellation.

Apollo 11 day 3

As the crew of Apollo 11 streaked toward lunar orbit and into the 50th hour of their mission, the spaceflight fever seemed to continue to spread. I distinctly recall sitting the front seat of my dad's old pickup truck, parked in the driveway, wearing football helmets and pretending to be on our way to the moon in the command module. I'm sure millions of kids all over the nation were doing such odd stuff. Considering how silly that sounds... one can imagine how weird we'd get after the actual moon landing.

A teenager's tribute to Cronkite

Here is what I thought was the best sequence that wrote involving my Walter Cronkite tribute character Walter Antcrite. It was written in late October of 1976 in one of my earliest cartoon strips.

Apollo 11... launch day, 40 years ago

It was a fine summer morning in Saginaw, Michigan on the 16th day of July, 1969 and by nine o'clock that morning, most of us kids had already been outside playing for a while. I had no idea that the events that were up-coming would have a profound effect on my life- sure I'd been told a zillion times that history would be made that day, but in the mind of a 12 year old, that meant little.

Although documentaries of the era would have you believe that every place you looked there were hippies on acid with flower face paint ambling around blowing bubbles and angry black people marching down every street and burning buildings as F-4s dropped napalm on hills nearby, but that is as far from the truth as those events were from our neighborhoods. For most of the nation this was a time when most of us were living a much more near Leave It To Beaver existence than the one depicted in the documentaries. Sure- moms didn't wear a dress to do housework and dad was only seen in a suit when going to a funeral, but other than that we were happy and safe. My friends and I played outside totally unsupervised from the time we got out of bed in the morning until the streetlights came on in the evening. We made good use of every second of summer weather. It was an era of plain white T-shirts, Red Ball Jets sneakers, skinned knees and grass stains.

There was no escaping the TV coverage of the Apollo 11 mission as all of the networks had been on the air live since since before dawn. Bergman did some of his best space savvy droning on ABC in contrast to the outward disdain for the space program presented by Chet Huntley and his otherwise indifferent partner David Brinkley on NBC. Over on CBS they had pulled out all of the plugs for this mission. Cronkite had been teamed up for the first time with astronaut Wally Schirra in pairing that would become nearly as legendary as the flights they would cover. All three networks ran the standard clips of the astronauts, eating, suiting and walking out... although a close look at the suit-up would have revealed that the event shown was actually taped during the Countdown Demonstration Test back during the first week of June, (The tell-tale clue to that is that in the "suit-up" footage, the astronaut's suits are missing the Apollo 11 mission patch.) Of course the fine producers at NBC could not resist the urge to temper what excite may be generated and go out and "ask" the "public" what they thought of the mission. So they went out and found that well known Apollo Cheerleader, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy who, of course went on camera to moan about all of those poor and hunnngry people in America, who you'd think were dropping dead in our streets by in bunches, and he then acted as if the cancellation of this mission, at this point would somehow instantly cure all of that. Less than a year later, the producers at NBC and Rev. Ralph would get their wish. The Apollo program would be cancelled and an estimated total of less than $300 million dollars out of the $24 billion invested in Apollo would be returned to the federal coffers and rapidly turned into bureaucratic cellulite. No ghettos would be cured, no extra programs to feed those herds of "The hungry" would appear and thousands of aerospace workers would lose their jobs.

My mom called me to the TV less than two minutes before Apollo 11 lifted off. At the time I was only marginally interested in the space program. I'd watched with a kid's interest, all of the previous flights and now stood by the TV and watched as Apollo 11 counted down to zero. The images of the Saturn V roaring to life were familiar as were the images of the ascent and staging. I recall that as Apollo 11 cleared the tower, my mom said "Oh God... they're taking such an awful chance." I remember looking at her and saying to myself "What chance?" NASA had this all planned out... I thought... so completely that every detail was covered. I recall feeling that my mom's concern just showed that she didn't understand how good NASA was at doing this. When the coverage switched to animation, I went back outside to play.

Things in my world were immediately different from that moment, however. It was like a space program infection had suddenly spread to everyone everywhere. No matter where you looked or who you spoke to the subject of Apollo and spaceflight seemed to pop up. The other kids in my neighborhood played space and space toys of ever sort seemed to come into their possession out of the blue. I went back to my room that evening and got out my model CSM and LM that I'd build with remedial modeling skills. I practiced some docking and undocking and did a lunar landing on my bedroom floor. For the first time in my 12 years of life, I recall having the strong desire to find out more about this and I wanted to do so before the astronauts, now headed toward the moon, arrived there.

klyde morris 07/16