Reflections of a Would-Be Astronaut, 40 Years Later

When I was a kid, I was pretty convinced I was going to become an astronaut. In fact, I was obsessed. I memorized tons of facts and figures about the space program, learned the names and backgrounds of all the astronauts in each of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space projects, and was even on the NASA mailing list.

My Dad was a mechanical engineer whose company did major work in the aerospace industry, and I spent hours pouring over insider magazines I found in his office, cutting out pictures of the latest space vehicle prototypes and hanging them in my bedroom for inspiration. I constructed, painted and launched just about available every Estes model rocket, including the huge Big Bertha I launched in my 6th grade science class at Penn Wynne School. After a successful countdown and launch, the entire class ended up running about a quarter-mile down the street chasing the rocket to retrieve it as the wind carried the parachute far away from our athletic field, much to the chagrin of our teacher, Mr. Fritz.

I spent countless hours doodling pictures of rockets, astronauts, and the LEM, the lunar landing module, which I thought was just the coolest alien-looking thing I had ever seen, imagining what it would be like to be one of the astronauts landing on the moon for the first time. My crowning achievement was building and painting a 4-foot Revell plastic model kit of the Saturn V rocket, which I proudly displayed in my room.

So imagine how I felt when I learned that the moon landing was going to happen on July 20, 1969 -- right smack dab in the middle of when I would be at summer camp at Camp Saginaw in Oxford, Pennsylvania -- where we didn't have a television set. I would be missing what to me would be the most important event of my then-young life. As much as I loved camp, I told my parents that I would be willing to forego going that summer just so I could watch the moon landing live.

Luckily, a number of the counselors and older campers didn't want to miss it either so the camp director, Herb Cohen, arranged for some televisions to be brought in for the evening. So those of us who were interested were allowed for just this one special occasion to stay up late in order to be able to watch the moon landing as it happened.

Although it was forty years ago, I can remember that night as if it were yesterday. Walking up the hill to the camp cafeteria from my bunk in my pajamas in the still, humid night to the sound of chirping crickets and the lights of fireflies, ripe with anticipation. A bunch of us crowded in the dimly lit cafeteria around the small black and white TV sets with the fuzzy pictures being beamed in live from the moon.

The feeling of disbelief, wonder and amazement upon seeing Neil Armstrong take that "One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind". The spontaneous, emotional eruption of hoots, hollers and backslaps. And walking back to my bunk in the late night when it was over, looking up at the moon on the starry night thinking to myself, "wow, they're actually up there!"

Many years later, on the day I finished my last law school final exam, I convinced my classmate and friend, Jeff Shapiro, to drive with me up to Cape Canaveral from Miami to watch the launch of the Space Shuttle. We drove out the night before, and slept in lounge chairs we had set up on the shore directly across from the launch site a couple of miles away. We awoke to the sounds of a three-ring circus as hundreds of others had somehow joined us during the night. It's hard to describe what it was like to actually experience the sights and sounds of a real rocket taking off right in front of me after years of only watching launches on TV and shooting off model rockets. For a day, I was that young kid again.

Last year, I had the honor of meeting one of my childhood heroes, Captain Gene Cernan, at the Seoul Digital Forum we were both attending. Captain Cernan was the last man on the moon as Commander of Apollo 17 (and previously was the second man to walk in space as part of the Gemini 9 mission and also flew Apollo 10). What most people don't realize is that Captain Cernan actually spent much more time on the moon than the Apollo 11 astronauts, sleeping for three nights on the lunar surface in the LEM. Watching him talk about that experience, and seeing the look in his eyes as he spoke, it was clear he had been deeply and permanently moved by it. What seemed to have affected him most was his being able to look back at our small, blue planet from his unique perspective on the moon and truly realize that we all live together on it as one.

I kept the New York Times from July 20, 1969 and later framed it along with the first-day covers with the stamps commemorating some of the anniversaries of the moon landing, which for years I hung in my office. Although I obviously never did follow my dream to become an astronaut, the "can do" attitude of our country during that time clearly affected me in a major way.

So for those that say reaching for the stars is a waste of time and money when we have other far more pressing endeavors back home to deal with, I beg to differ. There is nothing more important than inspiring young people to think big and believe that they can do anything -- even what is seemingly impossible - if they just put their minds to it. And by looking up and out, rather than just in and around, we are reminded of something we all too easily forget -- the commonality of what all we all share on this planet. On July 20, 1969, regardless of our nationality, religion, age or creed, we all shared in something amazing as citizens of the earth. On the 40th anniversary of this remarkable event, it is certainly a bond worth remembering.

Follow Fred Goldring on Twitter: www.twitter.com/labluedevil

Comments

[swkidder]

Fred: Years ago I had to identify personnel for a contract my company was bidding at GSFC. The toughest position to fill called for a PhD in the Earth Sciences, and a series of specific types of experience. I found a potential candidate at JSC, a lovely man who informed me he was 1) exactly qualified, and 2) loved his current job and would never consider leaving it. He called it the most divinely subversive position in which he'd ever had the pleasure of working. What he did was run the hand-held photography program for NASA.
In order to give the astronauts something to do during the times they were in extensive orbit and not required to perform flight related tasks, he gave them cameras with which to take pictures "out the windows" of the spacecraft. As he described it, he was given gung ho Space Cowboys, sent them into orbit with a camera, and they came back as rabid Environmentalists.
I told him I'd rather lose the contract than move him out of what he was doing. I hope he's still there. This was clearly one of those astonishing opportunities to create real change that had found exactly the anonymous human being who knew just what to do with the chance he'd been given. May he live long and prosper.

[WalkingOnEggshells]

Today my hopes are with Richard Branson and Burt Rutan creating a business to take people up for short suborbital hops. All that's necessary is for it to make a profit and it will grow, next step how many orbits would you like to pay for, sir? Ticket for one to New Shanghai moon base, ma'am? That'll be $250,000, coming right up.

Keep up the good work, Richard. I'm writing a proposal to send to you soon. You don't know it yet, but you urgently need my help.

[WalkingOnEggshells]

The best thing going for NASA now is the Chinese effort to land men on the moon, reigniting American competitiveness and spurring NASA to rejoin the race that they thought they had won. It's not about just getting there for a visit, it's about returning regularly and living there from now on. But my best hopes are not with NASA anymore, because a fellow I met once at a scientific meeting who was a "policy analyst" at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. explained to me that NASA is now essentially a political entity that survives by spending huge sums of money in the districts of influential Senators and Congressmen who in turn ensure that they have huge sums of money to spend. Consequently NASA has enormously bloated budgets and it is in their interest to drag out projects and their funding as long as possible. There are NASA Centers scattered around the country for example like little pots at the end of rainbows for the politicos, largely useless backwaters like Ames Research Center and Dryden Research Center which nonetheless consume huge amounts of money. The only essential NASA Centers are NASA JSC in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the rest are all about pork and although there will be naysayers everyone in the system knows it.

[WalkingOnEggshells]

I shared your dream Fred, and got so far as a postdoc research position at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. I learned from some of the old-timers that NASA had changed dramatically, nothing like it was in the Apollo days. I was told that JFK's goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 60's was only achieved because almost everyone worked overtime for free, accounting for about a third of the total hours spent; their hearts were in it and they all had a common goal. During my tenure in the early 90's however I saw intense fighting and backstabbing for lab space, even outright sabotage of other people's efforts sometimes. Gone was the spirit of cooperation. Worse, I came to realize that the astronaut selection process is designed in part to weed out anyone who isn't a "team player" (i.e. go along to get along) type of personality who can be counted on to follow orders without question and shut up about anything shady. Being the exact opposite and proud of it, I knew I'd never make the cut.

[Scent]

Reaching for the stars has always been beneficial.

The problem is not that it is a waste of time and money. It is that when it becomes political the gain is on the wrong side of the table. When it becomes a matter of profit and business, gain is way down under the basement.

Let us look at what happens:

The people are inspired and let politicians pay tax dollars to go into space. Their gain is to watch some footage on a screen that could as easily have been shot in a studio.

The politicians however don't pay anything but get to be hailed almost as much as the astronauts and staff who do the work.

Then however business steps in and draws from the investment the people made the benefits of patents, inventions, and new ideas. - And makes REAL money out of an investment the people made. We as the people who invested in the whole operation then pay extra for new inventions that came out of our own investment.

I may be a bit disgruntled at the way politicians and businesses have ruined so much for so many. - But am I the only one thinking that is a major ripoff?

[stevepasek]

I"m pretty tired of this meme being repeated over and over and over again, just like the (false) memes that tell us of all the "inventions" that were "created" by the space program (when in fact none of them were, even though they were products whose vendors received millions of dollars of free publicity).

Let's get kids inspired to meet the challenges of TODAY, not the challenges of yesterday. We don't need manned space flight any more, our space probes have provided far more information at far lower cost than any of the moon launches, which were primarily a propaganda tool.

Space isn't even the most challenging scientific project today, RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS are what we need, and that is a very, very broad, interesting, inspiring, and ultimately, surmountable challenge. It would do much, much more to empower today's children to know that they can change our world -- their world -- with science. We need to also change the way we as a society think about many things that we've come to take for granted with cheap fossil energy (like the kind we still use for rocket propulsion into space), and kids need to be aware that sustainable is good, compact is good, "small" isn't "less".

The idea that space exploration represents some sort of scientific grandeur that we should aspire to ignores the fact that it is one of the least cost-efficient ROIs , and simply enriches the same contractors who provide military hardware.

[DenisElliott]

As a twelve year old lad, I too was awed by what we'd done. I also learned all I could about the space program, and even knew something about the foundation for it Tom Wolfe explained in his book The Right Stuff - the movie was a piece of crap btw. Back to that day ("the Eagle has landed"), and then that evening, watching those first steps by humans on another world, I saw proof positive that we really could do anything we set our minds to. As Jim Lovell (Neil Armstrong's backup on Apollo 11) told his wife late that night, "it's not a miracle - we just decided to go."

Out of the necessity of war, we converted auto production lines into tank & aircraft production in weeks - we also split the atom and ushered in the nuclear age. However, Project Apollo dwarfed both events, and more importantly, despite the Cold War setting, Apollo was a PEACEFUL enterprise. We didn't HAVE to do it, but we did, and in the process spawned techonology those under 45 take completely for granted, yet without which our current world wouldn't run.

You'll never convince me that if we can do THAT, we can't (in a few years) create cost effective renewable energy, and autos that run on something besides oil. IOW, it wasn't a waste to go to the moon, and should we as a people demand our leaders commit us to new, grander technological goals, we can astonish the

[KellyKay]

It all comes toghether when you realize that the author is an Entertainment Lawyer. I wonder what you would have aspired to without the space program?

[JamesHenry]

The entire space programs at NASA are just a big fraud, I don't even believe that these guys landed on the moon, just a way to scam billions of dollars to fund secret weapons programs and stuff.

We have no idea what goes on behind the closed doors of NASA and the crap about going to Mars is a joke just to blik billions more from the american public so that people can create weapons of mass destruction.

Susposedly they left tracks on the moon lets see some pictures with cameras of today we could highlight the foot prints now.

[EngineerBill]

The sad fact is that the space program as a motivator is a complete failure. Our planet has and our country have ignored the lessons that the space program could have taught us. Don't get me wrong. Big science, including space, should be part of our national priorities. If only because our species is separate from lower forms of life because of our ability to discover and create beyond what is necessary for our survival and immediate gratification. Manned space flight is simply not efficient enough for us to fund with scarce tax resources.

[SeriousBlack]

Again - You presume to speak for all the people, such as myself, who actually HAVE been motivated?

[KellyKay]

ok lets hear your grand contribution to society! Maybe it will motivate me!

[SeriousBlack]

And one (and only one) more thing, for those that are complaining so loudly about how much money NASA spends. Know what the percentage of the 2007 budget NASA was?

Anyone?

0.58 percent. Almost ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT.

Now, even if the ONLY function of NASA was to inspire young people to greatness, it seems to ME (others are, of course, free to disagree) that 0.58 percent of our budget is worth THAT.

But of course, there's the other whole argument which I myself would ALSO agree with which is that for that amount of investment, the advancements in research, technology and science must almost certainly be recouped from that cost.

And one final point - After all the other ways in which America has relinquished it's lead in other technical and economic areas (the only OTHER remaining one being MILITARY capability), do you really want to see us give up the lead in space exploration? REALLY? You really want to see the Chinese or the EU (God FORBID it be a Frenchman) be the first to land on Mars?

What is the national prestige associated with remaining the leader in space technology and exploration worth? Hmmm?

[JamesHenry]

typically NASA lets their technological advancements get pilifered and set out to the private industry so that private industry can capitalize from the publics investment

[guard]

It is not a matter of inspiring imagination and hope versus wasting time and resources on a space program.

Our choice is between expanding to the stars or staying on this planet while committing slow suicide as a species, and taking every other species with us in the process. Mankind must leave this planet or die.

Expansions are always forced. When population increases and resources run out, people have the choice between moving to new frontiers, or killing their neighbors and taking their resources.

We currently have the capacity to move to the moon, Mars, and the moons of other planets in the solar system. They do not have a biosphere to destroy.

The entire earth could then be turned into a park, protecting all species that are left here.

[SeriousBlack]

Good observations - along with yet another point, which is IF the "big one" ever hits (a huge meteor), having permanent self-sustaining colonies on the Moon and/or Mars would be a way for the human race to survive as well.

Yes, yes, yes - the chances of that are really small. But isn't there a big one coming relatively close around 2029? What if it's orbit gets deflected slightly between now and then?

Yes it is an unlikely event - but consider what is being gambled... the very existence of the entire human race. Seems like it would be well worth what is in reality (with respect to the GDP of all the advanced countries on the planet) a relatively small insurance policy in the form of Lunar and Mars colonies.

[jackwaddington]

What on earth (pun definitely intended). We are not going to learn from outer space anything about understanding one another. "Unified Field Theory" has already been formulated and guess what??? It did not turn up in either science or technology.

[imagineitproject]

What Fred says here is exactly right, and he's not alone. Especially this line, "There is nothing more important than inspiring young people to think big and believe that they can do anything -- even what is seemingly impossible - if they just put their minds to it."

As we celebrate the landing of the first man on the moon we are reminded of the power of imagination in action.

There's a growing chorus of voices joining the movement to get the creativity and the arts back into schools AND connect them with science, engineering and math (STEM) education to inspire the next generation. Taking tests is no way to encourage intellectual curiosity in kids.

I've just finished making a movie (imagine it!2) about the power of imagination, which features dozens of people from science, technology, the arts and education including:

-Ray Kurzweil, futurist
-Sir Ken Robinson
-Ed Catmull, Pixar/Disney Animation
-The Blue Man Group founders
-Peter Diamandis, X Prize
-Dr. Charles Vest, former pres. of MIT, pres. of the National Academy of Engineering
-John Hennessy, pres. of Stanford
-Sally Ride, first American woman in space
among others.

These people make the case that we must connect creative thinking with science and engineering in order to inspire the next generation.

Thank you Fred for sharing a great story.

Richard Tavener
producer, imagine it! The Power of Imagination
Preview film here http://www.imagineitproject.com/video/index.htm

Unleashed, the power of imagination is the power to change the world.

[MastersUniverse]

Who would have thought that after 40 years, man still has not ventured beyond the Moon? Who would want to spend their life toiling away in the name of scientific research to benefit mankind when the alternative is to strike it rich by pressing a few buttons on a Bloomberg terminal? In the past 40 years, there has been a strong negative correlation between market performance and Space development, with many top rocket scientists being lured into investment banking during the roaring go-go era. These geniuses would develop highly sophisticated vehicles such as Jupiter V, not to go into space, but to hold Collateralized Debt Obligations. The Dow has gone up more than 1300% but astronauts are still driving the same Volvo 240 into Space.

http://www.mastersuniverse.net