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Jim Lovell Talks About Apollo 8 & Apollo 13 (Full Interview) — Transcript

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0:00This is the Johnson Space Center oral
0:02History Project. James A. Levelville,
0:04Jr. May 25th, 1999. We're at the Johnson
0:08Space Center.
0:11When you were a little bitty kid, you
0:14saw a rocket go off and you said, "I
0:15want to do that." Is that how is it that
0:17simple or that complex? Well, you know,
0:20Ron, I was interested in in rockets and
0:23in astronomy uh long before uh the
0:27Glenns and the Shepherds of the world
0:28could spell rocket. I uh I was
0:31interested in uh way back in in high
0:33school. I uh went to try to build some
0:36rockets. Uh wanted to become a rocket
0:38engineer. As a matter of fact, wrote to
0:40the American Rocket Society at that
0:43time, which is now the AAIA, something
0:45like that. And I said, 'I want to, you
0:47know, I want to become a rocket
0:48engineer. And they wrote back a very
0:50nice letter, but essentially they
0:51said,"Well, you ought to go to either
0:52MIT or to Caltech." I couldn't afford
0:55either. And so I took a secondary goal.
0:58I got a a ROC appointment to Wisconsin.
1:02And then from there, I went to the Naval
1:04Academy. Uh, and from there, I got into
1:06flight training, which was the second
1:07thing I wanted to do. I was became a
1:09naval aviator. And lo and behold, in
1:121958, NASA was formed and they were
1:15looking for astronauts. And so I was one
1:17of the original, I guess, 110 people who
1:21was selected to to go for interviews.
1:23>> Let me go back to your your
1:25Naval Academy days. You almost didn't go
1:27to the Naval Academy. Am I right about
1:29that?
1:30>> That's right. I uh had two years at
1:32Wisconsin and I was in a naval aviation
1:33program. This is right after World War
1:35II. And I got down uh to the uh uh to
1:38pre-flight. started through pre-flight.
1:40My mother while I was at the at
1:42University of Wisconsin said, "Would you
1:44apply for the Naval Academy?" So, just
1:45to pacify her, I said, "Sure, I'll do
1:47that." Never expecting. In fact, I
1:49became first alternate, which normally
1:51doesn't make it anyway. And when I was
1:53down there pre-flight, I got orders from
1:56the bureau, report to the Naval Academy
1:58for the physical to be inducted into the
2:01academy if you so desired. And then I
2:04had a big question mark. Should I go to
2:06the academy? The young Marines just back
2:07from the war said, "Don't do that.
2:09You're already got two years of college.
2:11You're already in naval aviation. If you
2:13go back, you're going to have to start
2:14all over again. You might not get back
2:16into aviation." But there was an old
2:18captain there by the name of Captain
2:19Jeter. And he said, "Look at son, you
2:22want to make the Navy your career. You
2:24want to get your education right now,
2:25get yourself up to the academy." And so
2:27that's what happened
2:29>> from the academy. Uh how'd you get back
2:31into airplanes?
2:32>> Well, I spent my course four years
2:34academy. my term paper, my first class
2:36term paper I wrote on the development of
2:38the liquid fuel rocket which by the way
2:40I just donated just last year to the uh
2:43to the academy and I was one of the
2:46first 50 because I was so much
2:47interested in going back in aviation
2:49that they selected 50 people to to teach
2:52at the academy after I graduated teach
2:54the plebes coming in and then that uh
2:55September I was uh transferred down to
2:58Pensacola
3:00>> and and what kind of planes did you fly?
3:03Well, in those days we flew SNJs, uh,
3:06which was the basic trainer all the way
3:09up through landing on a carrier with
3:11SNJs and we did formation and some night
3:14flying and, uh, you know, basic
3:16training. Then I was transferred from
3:18there uh to u uh to Kingsville, actually
3:23Corpus Christie, then Kingsville,
3:25>> and did my instrument training and uh
3:27and my advanced training was in a in a
3:30modern airplane called the Hellcat, the
3:32F6F. And then I got got my wings and uh
3:36and then I was selected to go back into
3:39jet training. And in those days, jet
3:41training was, you know, the epitome of
3:43everything. And and not too many people
3:44in it. So I was very very lucky. Did you
3:47you enjoy flying jets?
3:48>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, jets were I still enjoy
3:51flying jets if I get my hand on one. Uh
3:54uh but I would after I got through
3:56training, my first assignment was to a
3:58squadron called VC3. And when I got out
4:01there, I found out it was a night
4:03fighting uh night fighter squadron. They
4:06sent teams out because in those days we
4:08didn't fly whole squadrons off of
4:09aircraft carriers. And I told the
4:11skipper, I said, you know, you I'm
4:13having a little trouble flying the
4:14daytime yet. You want me to go out at
4:15night? But it was great training, a
4:17great experience and I learned an awful
4:19lot.
4:19>> Anything quite compared to that first
4:21landing, night landing on a carrier.
4:23>> There is nothing that you know night
4:26flying off carriers separates the men
4:27from the boys as they the takeoff of
4:29course into a black void with no horizon
4:31and then coming in at night and those
4:33days we didn't have modern techniques
4:35like a mirror system and you know almost
4:37like a like a GCA. You had to come in
4:40low and he had a guy with paddles and a
4:41lighted suit. That was how we did it in
4:43those days. So, at what point did you
4:46hear about NASA trying to select people
4:48to become astronauts and decide, hey, I
4:51want to do that?
4:52>> Well, when I got back off a cruise, I
4:53spent some time training people, but
4:55then uh some of my contemporaries, my
4:58older uh the pilots that were in my
5:00squadron had already gone through a
5:02thing called uh test pilot school. And I
5:04thought that would be a kind of an
5:06interesting thing to do. So, I applied
5:07for test pilot school. And I I went and
5:10just as I graduated from the school
5:12which was 6 months long at that time of
5:14course NASA was formed and then they
5:17were talking about putting a man in
5:18space and they had put out at this time
5:22secret orders uh to all the people who
5:25both the air force and the Navy thought
5:26were qualified and NASA had certain
5:28criteria that they went by and it just
5:30so happened that I that I had just
5:32finished the school and that was one of
5:33the criteria that you had to have and uh
5:36we I went up for that original Mercury
5:38selection.
5:39How far did you last in that?
5:42>> Well, uh, it got down to the last, I
5:44guess, 32 people and, uh, I was one of
5:47the people through all the interviews,
5:49sent out to, uh, uh, went out to
5:52Albuquerque to the, uh, to the, uh, big
5:55what was the name of it? The, well,
5:57anyway, uh, it was a big hospital out
5:59there and, uh, Loveless Clinic. That was
6:02it. And, uh, we went through our
6:04physicals. Now, today I just finished a
6:06physical, but that physical was nothing
6:09like anybody had ever heard of before.
6:11You know, it was what they did to us was
6:13unknown to the medical profession. Uh
6:16because they knew that they had guinea
6:19pigs. Not only should we be in good
6:21shape, but they they knew we were going
6:23to go into an environment that was
6:24completely strange. So, they did things
6:25just for background and, you know, from
6:27data. And I went through there. Uh but
6:31when I got there and the next selection
6:33was to go on to uh uh down to a second
6:37group at Wright Patterson Air Force Base
6:40for some more tests and things like
6:41that. The doctor called me in and said,
6:43"Well, you're finished." And I said,
6:46"Finished? Why am I not accepted? No.
6:49No." I said, "What's wrong?" And they
6:51said, "Well, you have a high Billy
6:52Rubin." I said, "I don't even know what
6:54a high Billy Rubin is. What is it?"
6:56Well, too much pink pigment in your in
6:59your in your blood. And so I I went home
7:02was very very much dejected. And so I I
7:05missed out on the second selection.
7:07>> So this liver problem, even though it
7:08was a relatively minor thing, said no
7:11way.
7:11>> As a matter of fact, ony Buzz Aldrin had
7:14the same thing that I had and we were we
7:17were fortunate. But you know, there's a
7:18there's a unique aspect of that
7:19physical. I got back to the squadron and
7:22this is not too well known. And I got
7:23back to the squadron and I got a set of
7:25orders to go back out to Wright
7:26Patterson. Now my skipper said, "These
7:29orders are probably not correct. Maybe
7:31they don't know what the stories." I
7:32said, "Listen, I'm taking them." I went
7:35out to Wright Patterson and they were
7:38sort of expecting me. I got out there
7:39the night before and the people that
7:41were all getting together at the BOQ
7:43said, "Oh yeah, so we got seven people
7:44and and you're number seven." I said,
7:46"Oh, I'm great." The next morning, we
7:49all went down to breakfast uh to uh uh
7:52to get ready to start our physical. And
7:54a fellow walked in and said, "Say," I'm
7:57sorry I'm late. I just came in from
7:59Edwards. My name is Gus Gryom, and he
8:02was number seven. And of course, I
8:04wasn't supposed to be there. And so, and
8:06pretty soon, NASA hierarchy found out
8:08about it. I was packing my bags, going
8:10back to the squadron.
8:11>> How disappointed were you when you
8:13didn't make that? I'm very very much
8:15disappointed because you see I was
8:16interested in rockets and things like
8:18that way back as a high school kid
8:20>> and I you know I didn't make it.
8:22>> There was no indication past that
8:24original seven that they're ever going
8:26to find any more guys. Was there at that
8:27time there was a second chance?
8:30>> No one actually knew how far NASA would
8:31go or whether man in space was a
8:33possibility or not. And so you're
8:35absolutely right. Uh but that was
8:36something I always wanted to do. How
8:39long did it take you from that
8:40disappointment to get back into the loop
8:42and get rid of the liver problem? And
8:45>> well, I got back to the squadron, got
8:46transferred down to Oceanana, and I was
8:49going through, you know, uh, training
8:51people at this time. I was an
8:52instructor. And in aviation week, there
8:55was a little article, NASA is wants to
8:57select some more astronauts. And so
9:00before I knew it, the Navy called me
9:02down again and said, do you want to be
9:03in another selection? They didn't know
9:05that I what I that I was kicked out
9:07because of a physical. And I said,
9:09"Sure." And so, uh, I I put my my name
9:13in again and I was selected again to go
9:15for the physical, this time at Brooks
9:18Air Force Base, Air Force Physical. Much
9:21more practical, much more, you know,
9:23looking at what's wrong and what's
9:24right. And I had no problems passing it.
9:27And uh, and that's how I got selected to
9:29the second group. When you first went
9:31for a selection to the original
9:33astronaut corps, nobody knew what an
9:35astronaut was. Second time you went,
9:38they were the biggest heroes in the
9:39world. Oh, that's true. Yes. And I can
9:42recall very vividly the very first time
9:43we went after we had our interviews in
9:46Washington at the old Dolly Madison
9:47house. We all gathered back in a hotel
9:50room and we were talking about it. Wally
9:51Shar was there because, you know, Wally
9:53and I were in the same class. Al Shepard
9:55was there and while he was saying you
9:56know I don't know if I want to get in
9:58this program or not you know to go into
10:00some wacky program when I should be grew
10:03up the ladder in naval aviation in you
10:06know Navy hierarchy and of course now I
10:08look back on it again it was uh really
10:10something.
10:12>> How did the original seven accept the
10:14next group?
10:16>> Uh very cool at first. I mean, uh, you
10:19know, these were the days, uh, when I
10:22guess there was this the life world book
10:24contract, you know, and all that sort of
10:26stuff and and they were, you know, they
10:28were pretty, uh, high on the totem pole.
10:31They're bucky bucks. They were well
10:32known, everything like that. And the
10:33nine of us walk in there, but they
10:36warmed up after a while. And pretty
10:37soon, after a lot of negotiations, we
10:39all got on the same bandwagon with
10:41regards to these personal stories type
10:43things. But
10:44>> did you do you get one of those
10:45Corvettes to run around in and all that
10:47sort of thing? After a while, yeah, it
10:49was not bad. Uh, we'd buy the one
10:51wholesale, I think, and then we'd drive
10:52it for six months, then we could trade
10:54it in and get another one and trade it
10:55in. I guess I went through about three
10:58Corvettes during my whole period of the
11:01time I was there. I remember Pete and I
11:03lived at Ellington Air Force Base. Our
11:05wives were still Jane was in in
11:07California and my wife Marilyn was in in
11:10Virginia Beach. And he and I shared a
11:12BOQ room. And I remember when he got
11:14that Corvette, he had the top in the in
11:16the room and he was driving this
11:17Corvette. I just what I the car I got
11:20was just old station wagons. I had a
11:22family and I needed a station wagon.
11:24That's what I got.
11:26>> What how did your life change when you
11:27became an astronaut?
11:30>> Well, I don't think it it really changed
11:32in a way. Uh uh it we got to be a little
11:36bit of a celebrity, but you know, we
11:38didn't even do anything at first. And I
11:41can recall the very first time I went
11:43back to Milwaukee to my high school and
11:44I gave a talk to the high school people
11:47and uh I just went right to the school,
11:49got in, went to school, and in the back
11:51of the room after I was giving my talk,
11:53the mayor of Milwaukee was there and he
11:56was sort of mad that I didn't stop by
11:58and pay my respects to the mayor before
12:00I went. You know, all this kind of
12:02protocol I knew nothing about at that
12:03time. And I thought, you know, heck, I
12:06haven't even been in space and people
12:07are asking me, you know, what's going
12:08on, what's happening, and all that sort
12:10of stuff. So there was a little bit of
12:12false uh uh being a false idol at the
12:14time.
12:15>> What was happening to you during those
12:16Mercury days? What what was your job?
12:18>> Well, during the Mercury days, uh uh I
12:21got down into the space program about
12:23the time Wall-Ally was flying. In fact,
12:24the very first thing I did before I even
12:26moved down to Texas was to go down to uh
12:28Cape Canaveral and watch Wall-E take
12:31off. Uh and then uh we uh we got into
12:35some of the simulators that they had.
12:37They were not not too good at the time.
12:39And uh we started doing some training.
12:41It amazes me now because I was just
12:43talking just today to a brand new
12:45astronaut. Well, he's been here years,
12:47never flown. And he says, "Well, I'm
12:49still going through ASCAN." I said,
12:51"What's ASCAN? I have no idea." He says,
12:54"Astronaut candidate training?" I said,
12:56"Astronaut candidate training?" I said,
12:59"When I went through, it was all hit and
13:01miss. We had people come in to teach us
13:02a little bit about orbital mechanics and
13:04then we went out to the plants to learn
13:06all about the systems themselves and
13:08that's how we got most of our training.
13:11>> When did you move into the Gemini
13:12program and and what was your initial
13:14job there?
13:16>> Well, uh we got in the Gemini program uh
13:19and uh started learning all about the
13:21the spacecraft itself. But my first
13:23really assignment was uh as backup to
13:27Geminy 4. That was McDiv and Ed White
13:30>> and Frank Borman and I were the backup
13:32to that flight and so we were training
13:34for that one. It's kind of interesting.
13:35I met Ed White and I didn't know it
13:38until that Jiminy one time we were down
13:40at the Cape talking and he was a plebe
13:42at West Point and I was a pleb at the
13:44Naval Academy and we traded cufflinks
13:47and then we disappeared and of course it
13:49was years and years later that we're
13:50sitting down at the Cape Havoc breakfast
13:52when he brings up the story and I said
13:54that was me. You know, it's it's strange
13:57how how we we our lives crossed and then
14:00disappeared for a while. Get back.
14:01>> And White's job on that flight was to do
14:02an EVA.
14:04>> Yes.
14:04>> That was that was a a very big deal at
14:07that time.
14:08>> Yes, it was. Uh and one of our jobs we
14:10had what we called an air bearing
14:11trainer and we had that little like a
14:13squirt gun uh uh that we would use to to
14:17fire our way around and and try to do
14:19something on that. Uh it was the initial
14:21attempt at at EVA work. Uh, and Ed, uh,
14:25was out for a while, but it was not
14:26until later on that we really found out
14:28that we had a lot of problems with EVA.
14:30>> How did how did you how did you train
14:32for for a spacew walk? How did you and
14:34White train for that first thing?
14:36>> Well, we of course we we got in the
14:38suits. We had this airbearing trainer
14:41uh, which is only two-dimensional.
14:43You're on sort of a an air you're on a
14:45platform that and it's, you know, held
14:47up by air and then you can shoot this
14:49little gun. It's like a like a like like
14:52two little jets and and and try to
14:54maneuver yourself. But I have to tell
14:56you quite honestly it it really wasn't
14:58any good. I mean it was the best thing
15:00they could do at the time and it was not
15:02until later on in Gemini 12 that we
15:04learned what to do.
15:06>> So the mission takes off. What did you
15:07do once it left the ground and he's up
15:09there doing that? What was your job?
15:10Well, I was uh down at the Cape uh
15:13watching the launch and then I flew back
15:15and was in the control center uh you
15:18know when he was doing all his work.
15:19>> It's been a long time, reasonably long
15:22time since you got here. You ready to
15:24fly? You ready to go yourself now?
15:26>> Oh yes. I got here in October of ' 62
15:28and that went up in and uh oh 64
15:33or something like that and uh three
15:34years. Yeah. And then then my first
15:36flight wasn't until December 65. So, you
15:39and Frank Borman get that first flight.
15:41Tell me about how you felt when they
15:43told you you were going to go.
15:45>> Uh, well, it was kind of interesting. Of
15:46course, Frank and I were about the same
15:48rank and everything like that, but he
15:50got, you know, Air Force and he got to
15:52be commander of it and that's fine. But,
15:54uh, uh, it was a two-eek mission as a
15:58medical flight, as a matter of fact.
16:00And, uh, you know, two weeks with Frank
16:02Borman any place is a is a challenge.
16:05But but this flight uh we trained very
16:08hard. We had different types of suits.
16:11Uh and uh these were sort of get me down
16:14suits that we could
16:16you you didn't do EVAs in them. You
16:18couldn't get outside. You shouldn't open
16:20the hatch. Uh but uh uh the the very
16:24first takeoff was almost like it flying
16:26us for a while. Uh we got to it used to
16:29pretty good, you know, pretty fast. We
16:31were able to to get the idea of it. And
16:33I uh the spacecraft is very tight, so I
16:37didn't feel too nauseous at all. It was
16:38pretty good. But the suits were very
16:40hot, sweaty, and bulky. And uh they
16:43didn't want us to take off our suits.
16:45These were the old days when they were
16:47very worried about leaks of the
16:48spacecraft or something like that. Well,
16:50we knew the spacecraft wasn't leaking.
16:52Uh
16:53>> one of you had to keep a suit on at all
16:54times, right?
16:55>> Yes. It was sort of a ridiculous uh
16:56regulation at that time. And so, uh, but
16:59I started to unzip my suit and my rear
17:02end was going out of the suit and and
17:04we're getting out farther and farther
17:05and pretty soon the suit was over here
17:06and pretty soon I slipped the helmet
17:08down. I'm out of my suit. I'm in my
17:10underwear and uh, so Frank wants to get
17:13out of his suit. So he's so the ground,
17:16you know, for three days the ground
17:17argued with him and the poor guy was
17:19hot, sweaty, and finally they let him
17:21get out of a suit. And of course my uh
17:24my uh young son at that time said uh dad
17:28orbited the earth in his underwear which
17:30is essentially what we did.
17:32>> You said it was a a medical experimental
17:34flight. Did did you feel like you were
17:37you were an experimental rat up there as
17:39it were
17:39>> a guinea pig. Absolutely a guinea pig.
17:42The doctors of course were you know this
17:44is can man live in space and the reason
17:46for the mission was that the maximum
17:48time to go to the moon and back and
17:49we're already planning for Apollo was
17:51two weeks. And so they said, "Well, if
17:53we could put people up into zero gravity
17:54for two weeks, it'll prove out one
17:56aspect of the of the moon flights." So
17:58we stayed up there and the old
18:00spacecraft had lots of problems with it.
18:02The fuel cells were dying slowly but
18:04surely. And I can remember quite
18:05vividly.
18:07You know, Frank doesn't even like to fly
18:09over water, much less spend 70% of his
18:11time over water. And he was anxious to
18:13come on down. And between uh Chris Craft
18:16and myself, uh uh I argue with Frank. I
18:19said, "Frank, don't worry. the Navy can
18:20find us regardless of where we come
18:22down. And Chris also talked to him and
18:24so we stayed up the full 14 days.
18:26>> There was uh there was some talk early
18:27on about landing Gemini on the ground,
18:30was there not?
18:32>> Uh yes, there was. As as a matter of
18:34fact, one of my jobs uh when I first got
18:36assigned was the recovery aspect. And we
18:40were looking at making a brago wing,
18:42which was developed by a NASA engineer.
18:44Uh they're called paragliders now or
18:46parings. and come on down and this thing
18:49would inflate and it' be like a V-shaped
18:51thing and then a guy inside the
18:52spacecraft could guide it down and it
18:55was really going to be on the last one.
18:56Uh they the the test results out at
18:59White or out at Edwards were not too
19:01good and
19:03they thought it was very prudent not to
19:05even put it on there. Why why do it for
19:06the last flight?
19:08>> Can you give me some idea how how you
19:10spend 14 days in that little cramped
19:13quarters with somebody else without
19:14going absolutely mad?
19:16It's not easy, but you have to remember
19:18that you work so long. I was there three
19:21years for a space flight, so I'd go up
19:22with just about anybody. And and Frank
19:25and I were, you know, just this close
19:26together. And you get to know each other
19:28quite well. Uh I mean, it was uh it was
19:33it was something. As a matter of fact,
19:34uh Frank went I think nine days without
19:38having to go to the bathroom.
19:40>> Nine days.
19:42>> And he said, "Jim, this is it." I said,
19:45'F, you only have five more days left to
19:47go here.
19:51But but
19:53what how is how was space food in those
19:55days? Because I want to get back to
19:57space food a little later. But how was
19:59it then?
19:59>> Strictly freeze-dried. Uh and these
20:02little bite-sized sandwiches had wax
20:04over them because everybody thought that
20:06they needed wax to keep the problems and
20:08the wax would coat the roof of your
20:10mouth and it tastes awful. I think one
20:12of the best things they had on board
20:13those days was uh were bacon bits. They
20:16would have a little square of bacon and
20:18they would squeeze after they, you know,
20:20cooked and everything. They squeeze it
20:21down and that was very tasty. Then they
20:23had you put water into various
20:25freeze-dried food much like campers have
20:27these days, but you couldn't heat it. It
20:28was lukew. But it kept us alive for two
20:31weeks.
20:33>> Looking back on it now, all of that
20:34seems very primitive, but at that time
20:36it was state-of-the-art.
20:38>> That's right. And you when I look at
20:40back look back on how ultra ultra
20:43conservative they were. For instance,
20:45John Young got in such a flap by taking
20:48a sandwich up on a three and a half hour
20:50or 4 hour flight. Even if it was had,
20:53you know, poison in it, he probably
20:54would have lasted for the whole flight.
20:56Uh and now of course uh things are
20:58entirely different. And then you know
21:00now uh I know we uh they were afraid of
21:03anything floating around. But now we
21:04found out that if the food is thick
21:06enough, he could eat it with a spoon.
21:07When you came back from Gemini 7, what
21:09did NASA learn from from these two
21:12experimental guinea pigs?
21:14>> Well, they learned number one that man
21:16could live very nicely uh in uh for two
21:19weeks that the uh cardiovascular system
21:22would adapt quite readily. The heart
21:24slowed down, blood volume decreased,
21:25which is a normal case in a two-eek type
21:28mission. Uh and we were able to navigate
21:30ourselves across the deck. uh we didn't
21:32have this orthostatic hypotension where
21:35you know where blood would drain down as
21:36soon as you stood up. I mean the the
21:38symptoms were there but I mean we could
21:39overcome that. So uh I think basically
21:42was the fact that hey space flight is
21:44possible longer than the three or four
21:45hours that you know they had been doing
21:47in the past.
21:48>> Was it as exciting as you thought it was
21:50going to be?
21:51>> Yeah, it was very exciting to me. I mean
21:53it was tedious work you know two weeks.
21:55We did have a, you know, a break when uh
21:57Shra and Stafford came up and rendevous
21:59with us and then they were up, I think
22:0124 hours and they went back down again
22:03and uh and we stayed up there for the
22:05full time. But uh it was uh quite
22:07rewarding.
22:09>> Uh stop just a second, will you please?
22:12>> Tape is rolling.
22:16>> All of these uh all these missions now
22:19as we look back on them fit like, you
22:22know, they all fit together. They all
22:24get us to the moon. But at that time you
22:26were trying to do something that had to
22:27be done before we could get to the moon.
22:29That is figure out whether you could
22:30dock in space. Am I right?
22:32>> That's right. The first thing we had to
22:33learn about is the rendevous in space.
22:35Can we get two spacecraft together which
22:37will eventually lend it lend itself into
22:39docking and then we can you know take
22:40the lunar module out. And the very first
22:42one of course was the Geminy 67 flight.
22:45Geminy 6 was supposed to to dock
22:47rendevous and dock with an Aena vehicle,
22:50but it it uh had something went wrong
22:53with it on its takeoff and so that
22:55delayed their flight. And so they moved
22:56Geminy 7 up to fly instead. And and when
22:59we were up there, uh Geminy 6 was going
23:03to rendevous. We couldn't dock with
23:04Geminy 7. They're going to rendevous.
23:06And of course, the first attempt to take
23:08off on Geminy 6 resulted in a shutdown,
23:11which very fortunately Wall-E didn't
23:12punch out. He he was cool. The second
23:15time up there though, they did and they
23:16uh they came up I guess we were up there
23:1911 or 12 days by that time and you could
23:22see them coming up. They they we they
23:23came up at night and we had a blinking
23:25light on and I we could see the jets
23:27firing as they came up. We were like
23:29this and they were coming up just like
23:30this and finally me and we all rendevous
23:32and we stay together. We each took turns
23:34flying around each other to see how how
23:36nicely the spacecraft would uh would
23:38control on something like that. Uh so
23:41that was the very first big step towards
23:44the rendevu and docking which of course
23:45were very necessary for the lunar
23:46flights too.
23:48>> You then were Capcom on on 8.
23:52>> Yes. Y
23:53>> right and there was a problem. Talk
23:55about that problem.
23:56>> Well Gemini 8 had a problem. Uh probably
23:58one of the first big problems. Uh and
24:00unbeknownst to us when they're out of
24:02radio contact a stuck thruster that
24:05occurred originally Neil and Neil and
24:08Dave Scott were on that flight. uh
24:10thought that it might be the AIA and
24:12they were trying to somehow you know
24:14slow the thing down. It was starting to
24:15make them roll and uh so they thought
24:18well we better get rid of the Gina. They
24:20had already completed a rendevous and
24:22docking and so they jettisoned the GINA
24:24and the the spin-up increased and it
24:26turned out finally that it was one of
24:28their thrusters that was firing and so
24:30they managed and they were very cool
24:31about this whole thing. They managed to
24:33uh to pull the circuit breaker, get the
24:35thruster off the line, and then using
24:37their uh the re-entry thrusters, which
24:40were only normally only used for
24:41re-entry, they were able to slow the
24:43vehicle down, and of course, they had to
24:45come back early.
24:46>> What happened in in mission control?
24:48What what's going on around you while
24:49all this is going on up there? And
24:51nobody's sure what what's going on.
24:53>> Well, everybody's trying to think up
24:55solutions of what the problems are. But
24:56we did. The problem hit us all of a
24:58sudden because when they came back into
25:00radio contact, well, they said, "Hey, I
25:03guess they use the old phrase long
25:05before 13, they we got a problem." And
25:07uh but I think they they managed to
25:10jettison the GINA and then determine
25:12their problem. And so it was sort of a
25:15an aftermath back at the control center.
25:17Uh because I don't think there was much
25:18that we could have done in the control
25:20center for a problem like that. If they
25:22kept spinning up faster and faster, then
25:23it would have been blacked out. But this
25:25was you realized after the fact because
25:28you didn't know it was happening then.
25:29Once they got around you realized they
25:31had a very serious problem.
25:32>> Oh yes. If they didn't uh correct the
25:34problem themselves, they would have been
25:35in deep trouble.
25:36>> Did that uh make you rethink uh anything
25:39about uh how safe or how unsafe this
25:43sort of thing is?
25:44>> No. Ron, it's surprising uh in this in
25:47this business. Uh that that problem was
25:49over there. You know, nothing's going to
25:50happen to me. Uh everything's fine.
25:52Don't worry about it. uh spaceflight is
25:55so interesting. the rewards far
25:57overshadow the risk and so that was that
26:00was my feeling
26:01>> that kind of test pilot mentality
26:03permeated everybody at NASA did it
26:05>> I think so I think the people who want
26:07to become astronauts at least in those
26:08days most of us were test pilots in
26:11those days uh had that sort of a
26:14curiosity and and adventure spirit to
26:17them that we were we were able to to
26:20take that in stride
26:21>> you were next assigned to back up the
26:23Jiminy 10 crew But Bassid and CE were
26:26killed.
26:27>> Yeah.
26:27>> And things changed. What happened after
26:29their death?
26:30>> Well, a sort of a fate. Uh we were
26:32backing up 10, but uh the nine backups
26:35became the prime backups. That was
26:37Stafford and Jean Cernin, I believe. So,
26:40uh we became the backups to nine. Uh and
26:44uh and then what we did was to uh become
26:48the prime crew for the last Geminy's
26:50flight. That was Geminy 12.
26:52>> Did you realize that was the last one?
26:54Was it the last one scheduled or?
26:56>> No, that was the last one.
26:57>> It was the last one scheduled.
26:58>> That was And I wasn't going to go on
26:59Gemini if uh if I was 10, you know, then
27:02Yeah.
27:03>> So, it gave you an opportunity to fly
27:04Gemini again.
27:05>> Yeah. And gave me a little bit of a
27:07command opportunity, which I wanted.
27:08>> And you were involved with the spacew
27:11walking mission on that. Talk about
27:12that. Uh that's very interesting because
27:15after Ed White's Geminy 4, which really
27:17didn't do much to learn about walking in
27:19space, uh they decided to do some pretty
27:22detailed uh work in outside the
27:25spacecraft. Started with uh really
27:27Gemini 9. They're going to have an AMU,
27:29an astronaut maneuvering unit, and it
27:31was in the back of the spacecraft. Gene
27:33Cernin was going to do the work on it.
27:35They got outside and tried to try to do
27:37the work and uh the hand holes were not
27:40good, the tow holes, he heated up, his
27:42his visor fogged over, he had trouble
27:45doing things which he could do easily in
27:47training and uh so eventually he came
27:49back into the spacecraft and they
27:51abandoned that. Uh they again attempted
27:53on 10, not not the MU but they attempted
27:55to do work on 10. What happened was that
27:58on nine and 10 and then eventually also
28:0011 when Dick Gordon was outside and he
28:02overheated and everything all of us
28:04forgot about one of Newton's third laws
28:06of motion to every action there's an
28:08equal and re uh reaction consequently
28:11when they went to touch the spacecraft
28:13the spacecraft repelled them you don't
28:15see that on Earth but you sure see that
28:16up in space in the zero gravity
28:18atmosphere when you have a big mass like
28:20the spacecraft and so when 12 rolled
28:23around they said let's devote a lot of
28:26time on 12 to find out how we can really
28:29work outside the spacecraft. And it just
28:31so happened that someone, I don't know
28:33who it was, said, "Well, how about
28:34underwater?" Wouldn't that give you sort
28:37of a uh an idea of zero gravity if we
28:40can make the astronaut neutally buoyant?
28:42And a space suit will work just as well
28:44underwater as it will in space. So NASA
28:47rented a a swimming pool in a boy's
28:50school up in Baltimore. Buzz and I went
28:53up there with the all the crew and we
28:56put Buzz in a space suit, got him in the
28:59water, made him neutally buoyant. I had
29:00communication with them and I sat on the
29:02side of the pool as if I was inside the
29:04spacecraft and we went through some of
29:07the basics. We had a crude mockup in the
29:09in the water itself, learning about
29:11working in space, learning about the
29:13proper hand holes and the proper tow
29:15holes uh to make sure that everything
29:17would work. And of course on 12 Buzz
29:19completed three spacew walks about five
29:22and a half hours I guess and you know
29:24everything we were supposed to do and
29:27and no problem at all. So it was a major
29:29turning point in the ability to work
29:31outside a spacecraft. But it also points
29:34out this sort of thing of somebody
29:35saying, "Hey, why don't we try a
29:36swimming pool?" Were there those people
29:38all along the way saying, "Hey, why
29:39don't we try this? Why don't we do
29:41that?"
29:41>> Yes. As a matter of fact, in NASA,
29:43there's a lot of people who uh use our
29:45imagination. And of course, it came to
29:47really uh the forefront of 13. But I
29:50mean, uh new ideas that was the whole
29:53idea of NASA, new ideas, what could we
29:55do differently? How can we do this? And
29:57there were a lot of mistakes. There were
29:58a lot of blind alleys we went up to.
30:01Perseverance though was was predominant
30:03in the program at the time. Let's keep
30:05on trying.
30:06>> Then comes uh the Apollo program and of
30:09course the Apollo fire. Uh do you recall
30:13where you were when you heard about the
30:14fire?
30:15>> Oh yes. Yes, very much so. I was in
30:17Washington DC at the White House. I uh
30:20was uh up there for the signing of the
30:23space treaty uh which essentially you
30:26know meant that space is available to
30:27everybody. there are no boundaries and
30:30uh also that astronauts uh if they have
30:33to land someplace else will be welcome
30:35rather than be treated as prisoners or
30:37something like that. And uh we had just
30:40finished that that thing at the White
30:41House and uh the four of us were going
30:43back to uh back to the hotel uh when we
30:47walked in and there was messages for us
30:50to call NASA back again and then they
30:51told us what had occurred and we spent
30:54the the night there. They said don't
30:56don't go outside. don't mingle around,
30:58you know, uh just just lose yourself.
31:01So, we did and uh and the next day we
31:03went home.
31:04>> You were assigned to to a panel to study
31:07what went wrong. What what was your
31:09study job? Uh yes, there were some 20
31:12panels plus the major major panel and
31:14then there's 20 sub panels and I was
31:17with uh uh Jack Swiker and I think it
31:19was Ron Evans that u we looked at how we
31:22can cope with in-flight emergencies,
31:24fires uh to see what we'd have to have
31:26on board or how we can what we could do
31:28for it. Uh very interesting uh uh
31:32investigation. I was in my past career,
31:35I was a uh safety officer in a squadron
31:37and went through aviation safety school.
31:39So some of the stuff I had learned back
31:41then I applied at that time.
31:45>> I I suppose the question that I need to
31:47ask in light of the fact that this is a
31:49very conservative, safety-minded bunch
31:52of people up to this point, how in the
31:54world did Apollo One happen?
31:57>> Well, I think you know when you look
31:59back on it, uh the the fire in Apollo
32:03one, we should have had plenty of
32:06warning ahead of time. We flew Mercury,
32:10we flew Gemini. All those spacecraft
32:13were tested on the ground by pumping in
32:15pure oxygen uh and so that they could
32:18breathe, you know, after the after the
32:20pre-b breathing because we flew at low
32:21pressures. Well, on the ground be
32:25because spacecraft leak, you always
32:27pressurize it about a pound per square
32:29inch higher than the ambient pressure.
32:31So on the ground we were they were at 16
32:34pounds per square inch were outside
32:37about 15 pure oxygen. Now for the all
32:41the Gemini flights the Mercury flights
32:43no problems but Apollo
32:47uh probably maybe due to the rush they
32:49were trying to do the block one was a
32:51disaster anyway. Uh and they pumped it
32:55up. We should have realized that you
32:56didn't have to put pure oxygen in that
32:58spacecraft. You should have put a
33:00mixture in anyway of oxygen and nitrogen
33:03because any anything will burn in pure
33:05oxygen as found out in the Apollo one
33:08fire.
33:10>> Was there also any of the case to be
33:12made for the fact that the contractors
33:14quit listening to the astronauts and
33:16said we don't need your input anymore?
33:20>> Uh in some respects what I remember in
33:22that particular aspect, one of the
33:24reviews we had out at uh North America
33:26at that time was the hatch. They're
33:28telling us how this hatch was built. It
33:30was in two sections. There was an outer
33:33section and an inner section. And the
33:35intersection was there because of the
33:36spacecraft pressure would always keep
33:38the thing sealed against the side. But
33:41if you ever had to get out of the thing
33:43on the ground, it was disaster. And even
33:46in space, if you had to do an emergency
33:49return from the lunar module to go into
33:50the hatch side, uh you had to take off
33:53two hatches to do it. I mean, and so we
33:56mentioned that we said, "You'd ought to
33:58have a single piece hatch here of some
33:59sort, something we could normally use
34:01and close." We had it in Geminy. I mean,
34:04you know, it it's not impossible to
34:06build one of those things. We had one
34:07built and tested in Geminy. Why don't
34:09you do it here in Apollo? Uh, but no one
34:12listened until, of course, the uh the
34:14fire started. And of course, there was a
34:15time constraint, I would suspect, too.
34:17And they were looking at, gee, they want
34:18to modify the spacecraft again. That
34:21also meant a longer time before
34:24anybody's going to fly again.
34:26>> Means a longer time before you're going
34:27to fly again means a longer time before
34:28anybody's going to fly again. Are you
34:30are you worried that maybe somebody's
34:32going to say, "Let's just forget the
34:33whole thing."
34:34>> Well, yeah. If you recall, the fire took
34:36place in 1967.
34:38We had a commitment made by President
34:40Kennedy that we would land a man on the
34:42moon and bring it back home safely
34:44before the end of the decade. And when
34:46the fire occurred in January of ' 67 and
34:48we didn't know really what it was going
34:50to do, everybody was really down in the
34:52dump saying, "Holy cow." So I'd have to
34:55admire the engineers, the technicians,
34:57and the scientists and everybody here
35:00who found out the problem and the
35:02contractor people who finally realized
35:04that, hey, let's get a new type of
35:06spacecraft. Let's build something that
35:08people really can use. That's what
35:11happened. By the time Apollo 8 came
35:13along, you were a backup to Mike
35:14Collins. Were you were you convinced
35:17then that the capsule was okay?
35:20>> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was. I mean, you have
35:23to you have to go by faith. You have to
35:25you have to believe in what the people
35:27are going to hand you. You know, Al
35:29Shepard's old joke was, you know, how
35:31does it feel to sit on top of something
35:32built by the lowest bidder? But the
35:34lowest bidder was, you know, pretty
35:36expensive. But you have to believe that
35:38whole thing. And I did. I uh I was, you
35:41know, uh Mike's backup and spent a lot
35:44of my time up at uh at Boston uh working
35:47on the uh guidance system.
35:49>> Where were you when you found out that
35:50he had a bad back and couldn't go and
35:52you were going to go?
35:53>> I don't really recall where I was. I
35:55think I'd come back here and finally
35:57they said uh you know, I was his backup.
36:00So that was the the thing. And then and
36:01Mike had this bone spur and I think he
36:03held off as long as he could but I think
36:05his leg was getting numb. And so uh
36:08finally they they replaced me and uh and
36:10and I went you know faith has sort of
36:12strange things uh because I never
36:15expected it to be on Apollo 8. But I
36:18have to tell you that was the high point
36:19of my space career.
36:21>> But if you hadn't been that backup, you
36:23might have been on 11.
36:24>> Uh yes, I was assigned to 11. I was uh I
36:28was assigned to 11, but still I'd prefer
36:32eight to my my position on 11.
36:34>> Okay.
36:34>> Yeah. Uh 8 turns out to be a significant
36:38flight once it takes off, but when
36:40you're assigned to it, it's still not
36:42what it turned out to be, was it?
36:44>> No, still Earth orbital. And we are
36:46going to high up, we're going to do
36:474,000 miles so that we could test the
36:49lunar module, the command module, and
36:51then come back in a high rate of speed
36:52so that, you know, we could test the
36:54heat shield and things like that. Uh it
36:56wasn't, and I I recall this very
36:58vividly, the three of us were out at
36:59Downey at North America testing our
37:02spacecraft. Uh and uh Frank got a call
37:06to go back to uh uh to Houston. We So
37:10Bill and I still stayed out there. We
37:12were working out there and Frank came
37:14back again back to Downey and said
37:16things have changed. And we said they
37:19said what he said we're if everything
37:21goes all right with Apollo 7 uh will
37:25Apollo 8 will go to the moon. I was
37:26elated. I thought man this is great. I
37:29mean I already spent two weeks in in
37:31space in Geminy 7 with Frank Borman. I
37:33didn't want to spend another 11 days or
37:35something like that, you know, going
37:36around the Earth again. I said, "This is
37:38fantastic." And on the way back, on the
37:41way back on the T38, when it was my turn
37:43to sit in the back seat, either Bill or
37:45Frank were flying, I drew the Apollo 8
37:48insignia, you know, the the V-shaped
37:50thing with the Earth, the moon. So,
37:52>> that happened because of cold work
37:54considerations, did it not?
37:56>> Oh, yeah. Uh, well, two things occurred.
37:59the Luna module wasn't ready and the
38:01Luna module was supposed to go up there,
38:03you know, and be tested out. And also,
38:06as you probably know and is well known
38:07now, we had intelligence information
38:09that uh that the Russians were going to
38:11put people around the moon. They were
38:14really attempting to land people on the
38:15moon, but uh
38:17>> Okay, let's stop there and we'll pick
38:19up. Okay,
38:20>> this is tape two, James A. Levelville,
38:22Jr. Uh we were discussing Apollo 8 and
38:26the the politics behind Apollo 8. The
38:29Russians are going to try to land on the
38:30moon and trump everything America has
38:33done.
38:34>> Actually, the Russians, believe it or
38:36not, were interested in lunar landings
38:38about the same time we were and had
38:41tried all sorts of things to get there
38:43and were building a huge rocket called
38:44the N1. Built 10 of them, flew four,
38:48none was really successful. Some of them
38:50they flew even after we had landed. Uh
38:52but they were very persistent people and
38:54they thought that using a different type
38:56of a booster called the proton and a
38:58vehicle called ZH they could fly people
39:01just circumn the moon just go around it
39:05uh not not land or not even to orbit it
39:08and they were very you know close to
39:10actually doing that. Uh they had sent a
39:13couple spacecraft up, went around the
39:14moon. One was not successful, one was
39:16partially successful. The next one they
39:18the two cosminauts and I know them uh
39:20wanted to go and then they hesitated
39:22back and forth. The hierarchy argued
39:24should we set another unmanned or should
39:26we not? And when they did that on this
39:28side of the Atlantic uh bold leadership
39:31at this time, they said lunar module is
39:34not ready. Uh the command service module
39:36if it proves outpost 7 will be okay.
39:38Huntsville thinks the booster could be
39:40okay. And so they said, "Let's send
39:43Apollo 8 to the moon." And so that's how
39:45it came to pass. Uh we And then after we
39:48got to the moon, of course, the Russians
39:50said we never planned in the first
39:51place.
39:52>> As a as a rocket man and and you remind
39:55me that you were from the very beginning
39:57as a rocket man, did you think we can do
39:59that?
40:00>> Oh yes. Uh looking at the Saturn 5 and
40:02what it what it could do and this is of
40:04course not only the first flight to the
40:06moon, but the first flight first time we
40:08used the Saturn 5 booster.
40:11Tell me about the flight. Tell me about
40:13how you how you felt as you approached
40:15that moon and knew you were going to go
40:18around it.
40:19>> Well, my first sensation, of course, was
40:21not too far from the Earth because when
40:23we turned around, we could actually see
40:25the Earth start to shrink. Now, the
40:27highest anybody had ever been, I think,
40:29had been either I think it was Apollo or
40:31Gemini 11 up about 800 miles or
40:34something like that and back down again.
40:35And all of a sudden, you know, we're
40:37just just going down and it was it
40:40reminds me of of looking driving a or in
40:43a car looking out the back window going
40:45inside a tunnel and seeing the tunnel
40:47entrance shrink as it gets as you go
40:49farther into the tunnel. Uh and it was
40:53uh uh quite a quite a sensation to to
40:56think about, you know, and you had to
40:57pinch yourself, hey, we're really going
40:59to the moon. I mean, you know, this is
41:01it. Uh I was a navigator and it uh
41:04turned out that the navigation equipment
41:06was perfect. I mean it was just you
41:08couldn't ask for a better piece of
41:09navigation equipment.
41:10>> Were you guys just riding or do you have
41:11a lot of work to do?
41:12>> Oh we had a lot of work to do. I mean
41:13this was the first test of an actual
41:15lunar flight. Uh the vehicle had been
41:17tested before but you know we were all
41:19looking at it and we I I did a lot the
41:21navigation was something new for going
41:23out there. Uh but uh and we had a TV
41:27program uh when we got to the moon. Uh
41:30but then
41:32coming into the moon itself, the last
41:34day our blunt end was towards the moon
41:37and we didn't see it as it got bigger.
41:39Uh going out there, it's not it doesn't
41:42grow gradually like this. It stays sort
41:44of small for a while. All of a sudden,
41:46it gets bigger like this. That's that's
41:47what it appears like anyway. And our our
41:50blunt end was towards the moon. We
41:51didn't see it as it got bigger, but the
41:53ground called up and the mission control
41:56said, "Now at such and such a time," and
41:58they named it right down to the second,
42:00you lose communication with us because
42:01the moon's gravity will swing around to
42:03the far side. Right to the second, uh
42:07there was static in our earphones, no
42:09cal. And uh then of course we uh uh we
42:12lit the uh engine to slow down and we
42:15got into lunar orbit. And uh this is
42:18where we started to look at the moon,
42:19you know, and we all those nice things
42:21we said. And and by the way, I'll put
42:24everything to rest right now that coming
42:25around when we saw the earth coming up.
42:28Uh who took that famous earth rice
42:30picture. They made it into a stamp in
42:321969. Now you you might get a different
42:35view from Borman or from Anders, but
42:37I'll have to I have to tell you right
42:38now. Now you think I'm going to say that
42:40I took it. Now I but for 25 years I said
42:43that only to keep the the things going
42:45to keep us young and happy. Keep a
42:47little keep a little controversy in the
42:48game. Actually I think Anders took the
42:51picture. But you have to remember I was
42:54the director. I told him where to take
42:56it. I told him how to compose the
42:57picture. He just happened to have the
42:59telephoto lens.
43:01>> Everybody wants to be a director.
43:02>> I know.
43:04>> Tell me what you tell me what you
43:06thought when you're two two things. One
43:09is you're no longer connected to the
43:11earth. They you can't yell help. They
43:13can't tell you what to do. You're on
43:14your own. First time you've ever been up
43:16there when that's happened, right?
43:18>> Well, yes. Except in Gemini when we
43:20didn't have communication. But
43:22>> we're we're 200,000 mi. 240,000 mi away.
43:24>> You're 240,000 miles away from this
43:26place that's telling you what to do.
43:28Nobody's talking to you. Nobody can hear
43:29you. You're just looking at it. What do
43:32you think?
43:34We were so curious, so excited about
43:37being at the moon that we are like three
43:40school kids looking into a candy store
43:42window watching those ancient old
43:43craters go by from and we're only 60
43:45miles above the surface that we we
43:48didn't have any kind of feeling at least
43:50myself of you know fear or or if you
43:55know are we going to get back or not. It
43:57was just just to be there was such an
44:00exciting moment uh that you know would
44:04have done it all the time. I felt very
44:06very uh uh honored and lucky to be
44:09there.
44:10>> That uh that particular Christmas 1968
44:14uh was the end of a tumultuous year
44:20really a tumultuous time in American
44:23history and there was a very salutoy
44:26effect on this country and the world
44:28because of your flight. Did you
44:29anticipate that?
44:31>> At the time we didn't know what the
44:33effect of the flight would be. We didn't
44:34know whether the flight was going to be
44:36successful or not. But you're absolutely
44:38right. Uh you know with riots and
44:41assassinations and the war going on, I
44:44was part of a thing that finally gave an
44:46uplift to the American people about
44:48doing something positive which was
44:50really uh that's why I say poll was
44:53really the high point of my space
44:54career. There are people in NASA who
44:56will say it's the high point of NASA's
44:58career that the landing of course is
44:59what we were shooting for. But that
45:01proved that you could do all the things
45:03that everybody said you could do.
45:05>> Yeah. I uh I I sort of lean that way. Uh
45:07on Apollo 11, I was uh honored to be
45:10with Lindberg uh watching the launch
45:13from the Cape, you know, as a go and I
45:15said to I said to General Lindberg, I
45:18said, "Isn't this really apppropo? I
45:21mean, this is this is the most
45:22auspicious moment. these people are
45:24going to go up there and they're going
45:25to land on the moon. And Lindberg looked
45:27at me and said, "Well, yes, to a certain
45:28degree." He said, "But Apollo 8 was the
45:30real charger of this whole program."
45:33>> Uh, how did you how did you choose that
45:36Christmas message that you all
45:37delivered?
45:39>> Uh, good story. uh the Christmas message
45:42uh when we determined first of all that
45:45we would get and burn into the lunar
45:49orbit on Christmas Eve, we thought, boy,
45:53we something's got to be appropriate to
45:55say. We we ought to say something. What
45:56What can we say? Uh and we couldn't
45:59think of anything. Then there was a
46:00fellow that I think Borman knew. His
46:02name was Cyborg. Uh he was with the US
46:05information agency. I think had gone
46:07with them some of the astronauts around
46:08on their trips. uh Frank asked him could
46:11he come up with something appropriate.
46:13Well, he couldn't, but he knew another
46:15person. I think it was a newspaper man.
46:17I forget his name. Uh that he said,
46:20"Okay, I'll think it over. I'll try to
46:22see what I can do." And he was working
46:24almost all night trying to think
46:26appropriate words. And his wife came
46:27down and said, "Why don't you have them
46:29read something from the Bible?" And they
46:32said, "Well, that's, you know, the the
46:33New Testament." No, she says, "The Old
46:35Testament. read it from the because you
46:38know this will be very appropriate and
46:40most of the people in the world will be
46:41listening in and most of the people in
46:43the world are not Christian. So that's
46:45how it came to pass. They said the first
46:4710 verses of Genesis which is really the
46:49foundation of many of the world's
46:51religions and that's how it got started.
46:53>> And you're sitting there looking as
46:55you're reading and God created the
46:56heavens and the earth
46:58>> was without form and void and darkness
47:00was on the and and and it must have been
47:03almost mystical to your feeling. It was.
47:06And at the same time, we had this sort
47:08of now rudimentary TV camera, black and
47:10white camera that was pointing out the
47:11window, watching the craters go by and
47:14slowly slipping into daylight.
47:16>> Yeah.
47:16>> Oh, I remember it was it was a it was a
47:19marvelous time for for America and the
47:21world, but a particularly marvelous
47:23Christmas time after what had been a
47:25terrible year. Let me uh let me go to uh
47:28Apollo 11. You're you're the you're the
47:30backup on 11.
47:32>> I was the backup commander on 11. Uh my
47:36philosophy is never miss a chance. I
47:39mean if I had a chance to be the first
47:41person to land on the moon, I was going
47:42to take it. It was the natural
47:44competition among all of us. But uh
47:47being back up is something I thought,
47:48well, there's an opportunity. I was I
47:50was a backup on Apollo 8. I got to fly
47:52Apollo 8. So uh I went to 11. Uh I think
47:57Frank thought I was crazy. Uh but I
48:00thought, hey, that's what I'm going to
48:01be doing. And so, uh, I I went through
48:04the whole thing with him.
48:05>> What was what was the feeling among the
48:06astronaut corps when when everybody
48:08realized Neil Armstrong got the
48:11>> Well, I think everybody, you know,
48:13resigned to the fact that Neil was going
48:14to going to go and uh and of course
48:16being a civilian, I maybe that was a
48:18good choice. We were either Air Force or
48:19Navy and uh there was no military
48:23implication to this this landing. So, uh
48:25so Neil actually went so someone had to
48:28go.
48:28>> Did that figure into it, you think?
48:30I don't think so because uh all the
48:33flights before 11 were chy. If if if
48:36eight proved out to be uh needed more
48:38training or was a disaster or then nine
48:41came or nine had something wrong with
48:43the lunar module uh you know or if
48:46everything went fine, you know, if 10
48:48had a full lunar module, they could have
48:49landed.
48:50>> Yeah.
48:51>> Okay, let's go to 13.
48:53>> Yeah. the uh that has reached almost
48:56mythic proportions because of the uh the
48:59book the movie and uh all about that u I
49:06I want to try to separate a little myth
49:07from reality here or maybe add to the
49:09myth I don't know which we'll do we'll
49:11do whichever you want to do okay
49:12>> we'll make it reality
49:13>> all right okay uh you that was not
49:16supposed to be your flight right
49:18>> no I was assigned to Apollo 14 uh
49:21because uh in the time period of the
49:24earlier flights, Al Shepard who had been
49:27grounded with a uh a miner syndrome or
49:30something like that in his ear and uh
49:33losing his balance. Uh finally he went
49:35to California at the suggestion of Tom
49:38Stafford who knew about a doctor out
49:41there who could cure this or could
49:43operate. So Al said, "Hey, you know,
49:45another I'm I want to go fly again. I
49:48I'll try anything." So he went out there
49:49and by gosh, he got ungrounded. Uh and
49:52so he came back. Now you have to realize
49:54that Al Shepard was a the ultimate
49:56politician, very wellrespected first
49:59flight he did. So he talked NASA into
50:02giving him talk Deal into giving him the
50:05very next flight which was Apollo 13.
50:07And then after he started working 13 and
50:10I was getting my crew together for 14,
50:13uh I think that the NASA hierarchy, not
50:16Dee, I think the NASA had second
50:18thoughts and they said, "Look at Al's
50:20been grounded for what, eight or nine
50:21years and you're going to give him the
50:23very next flight and he only made a 15
50:25subminute suborbital flight into space.
50:27Now come on, let's get serious about
50:29this thing." So Dee said, "Okay, I'll
50:33slip him one." And so one day when I was
50:35training for 14, Dee came in and said,
50:37Jim, uh, how would you like to take 13
50:40and we'll give Shepherd 14? I was
50:43delighted. I said, "Hey, yes." I mean,
50:46I, you know, I was on eight, back up on
50:4911. Uh, and I'm all set to go. I mean,
50:53you know, I need the training. I need to
50:54know where I'm going to, you know, all
50:56the experiments and things like that.
50:58Uh, but I'm ready. Uh, so that's how it
51:01came to pass.
51:03Can you uh can you put to bed or add to
51:06the uh story that one hears that you
51:09guys would kill your grandmother, get a
51:11flight, and there was a great deal of
51:13heavy competition between all of you for
51:15those jobs?
51:16>> Well, I could put to bed the fact that
51:18it was aggressive, but it wasn't that
51:20aggressive. I mean, the the people that
51:22really controlled it was Delayton.
51:25uh he was the person and then he he put
51:27his suggestions up to Chris Craft or to
51:31uh Bob Gilro at the time and that went
51:34up to up and you know unless unless
51:36there was some real reason why not to uh
51:39not to make a change I think that that's
51:41stood and and if you look at the
51:43rotation
51:44pretty much we were in a rotational mode
51:47you know I was uh originally on Apollo
51:4911 and uh Mike was on eight and then he
51:53just you know and I was back up on
51:55eighth, you know, then go into 11. So,
51:56it was just a rotationary period with
51:59new people eventually feeding in. So, uh
52:02so Dee really held the whole uh the
52:05whole ball of wax as far as selection
52:07goes, I think. And uh and but there was
52:09competition. You know, people were
52:10disappointed that they couldn't get on.
52:11Some people thought that they should and
52:13and other people, you know, uh had too
52:16many maybe.
52:17>> So, the commander is bumped from 13 and
52:20you take over.
52:22>> Yes.
52:22>> And another member of the crew at the
52:25last minute is bumped and somebody else
52:27comes in.
52:28>> Well, yes. Just four days before we were
52:30to take off on Apollo 13, you know, the
52:33doctors discovered, well, Charlie Duke
52:35came down with the measles. He was the
52:37backup lunar module pilot. I guess he
52:39came down with the measles. And uh and
52:42so, you know, he had been working with
52:44us all the time. And so, all of a
52:45sudden, the the doctor said, "Oh gosh,
52:48all these guys have been exposed to the
52:49measles and they're all going to come
52:50down with them about the time they're
52:51orbiting to the moon. It's really going
52:52to be disaster." So they went in to look
52:54at our blood work before we even knew
52:56anything about this and found out that
52:58the indications were and Hayes and I had
53:01measles when we were kids and you know
53:03our kids had the measles and so we are
53:06immune to the disease. Ken Madley was a
53:08bachelor, never been married, never had
53:10any kids and certainly never had the
53:12measles and so they bumped Ken and put
53:15Jack on board uh who was his backup. Now
53:20very fortunately you know the movie
53:22shows you a little bit different. Let me
53:23give you the reality here. Uh Jack
53:26happened to have written the malfunction
53:28procedures for the command module. So he
53:30knew the command module pretty good. He
53:33it is true he had not trained for the
53:35last month and a half because normally
53:36the backup crew in that that stage are
53:39the gophers. You know they get the hotel
53:40rooms for the guests. They do this they
53:42do that. Uh but we tr after we trained
53:45for about two days with Jack mainly to
53:48see because when we were by ourselves
53:50when he was by himself and we were
53:51coming up to rendevous and all that that
53:53we we knew how each other would act and
53:56everything because training with
53:58somebody for a long period of time I
53:59knew even the inflections on Ken's voice
54:01coming up you know how he was doing
54:03things. Uh but Jack proved out to be a
54:05very very competent pilot. But didn't it
54:08worry you when when Mattingly was
54:10scrubbed and and Jack goes in? Oh, yeah.
54:12Had to scare you to death.
54:13>> Oh, yeah. Because Yeah. Yeah. When when
54:14when Mattingley was scrubbed uh and and
54:17and Jack hadn't really been part of the
54:19team, uh we thought, you know, because
54:21we had worked such close together as a
54:24team, but uh uh we had already slipped
54:27the flight once from March to April. Uh
54:30and uh and the two days we worked with
54:32Jack, he appeared perfectly comfortable
54:35with the the vehicle. And uh so I said
54:38go because they they came to me
54:40privately and said are you happy? Are
54:41you satisfied? You do you want to go?
54:43And I said sure.
54:45>> Did you just want to go or were you
54:46happy and satisfied?
54:47>> Oh I was happy and satisfied they were
54:49going to go. Normally on the first two
54:51flights to the moon they they they they
54:53tell the crew privately now look at if
54:55anything goes wrong don't worry about
54:57it. Come back we'll give you the very
54:58next flight. That was on Apollo 11.
55:00Apollo 12 they got Conra's group. Don't
55:02worry about it. Don't take a chance. You
55:04know, we'll give you the very next
55:06flight. They didn't say anything on
55:07Apollo 13.
55:11>> Did it. You're obviously you're not
55:13superstitious.
55:15>> Uh, no, I'm not superstitious now. And I
55:17wasn't then, although the coincidence is
55:21uh
55:21>> 13th hour of the 13th, Apollo 13
55:24>> 13 takes off and it explodes on the
55:2613th.
55:26>> Yes.
55:27>> Uh, an interesting sideline.
55:30Apollo 13 was the last spacecraft to my
55:34knowledge that was ever ever had the
55:35number 13. If you look at the history of
55:38all the Apollo on spacecraft, all the
55:41shuttles and all the orbiters and all
55:42that, they're all something like 41G 53L
55:46or something like that. There is no 13.
55:48NASA will claim that they are absolutely
55:50not superstitious, but I'll bet you my
55:52last dollar, they'll never name another
55:54spacecraft as long as this place stays
55:56alive. 13.
55:57>> The launch was perfect. Everything went
55:59well.
56:00>> Saturn 5 worked fine up to the second
56:01stage.
56:03>> And so what's happening here?
56:04>> Well, then the center engine of our our
56:06second stage of our uh vehicle shut down
56:092 minutes early, probably due to a high
56:11vibration, which we have a safety
56:12feature. We shut it off. And for a while
56:14there, we thought, boy, is there a
56:16crisis? Is there a is there a problem
56:18with this thing? Do we have enough fuel?
56:19Do we have enough power to get into
56:20Earth orbit, then kick ourselves around
56:22to go all the way to the moon? Well,
56:24very fortunately, the folks at
56:25Huntsville overbuilt the vehicle and we
56:28did. We have enough fuel. Took us about
56:31a an extra minute and a half to get into
56:33Earth orbit, but we still had enough
56:35fuel on the third stage to go all the
56:37way to the moon.
56:38>> But the crisis is over. No problem.
56:39>> Yeah, we thought that was the crisis.
56:41That's it.
56:41>> Because almost every flight even today
56:44probably has something happens.
56:46Experiment doesn't work, instrument
56:47fails, something you know, something
56:49goes wrong. Uh, and we thought, hey,
56:51that's our I told the guys, "Hey, that's
56:53our crisis." And look at, we got rid of
56:54it. We're on our way.
56:56>> So, you're out you're out how long
56:59before uh the accident happened.
57:02>> Uh, we were out two days before the
57:03accident happens. But 30 hours after we
57:05took off, we got on to a different
57:07course because the course we were on
57:08originally was called a free return
57:10course to allow us get back to the
57:12Earth. But, uh, about 30 hours, we we
57:14changed course to land at this place. We
57:17we're going to land at a place called
57:18Fra Maro. So the sunlight would be in
57:19the proper position to see the shadows.
57:22Uh and then two days out on this hybrid
57:25course, the explosion occurs.
57:27>> You're just getting ready to go to
57:28sleep. Am I right?
57:29>> Yep. Yeah. The uh we have just finished
57:32a TV program. That was the last thing
57:34that evening. I think it was either 9 or
57:3610:00 back here in Houston. And I'm
57:38coming back down through the tunnel and
57:40suddenly there's a hiss bang and the
57:42spacecraft rocks back and forth and
57:43lights come on and jets fire and uh
57:46looked at Hayes to see if he knew what
57:48caused it. He had no idea. Looked at
57:51Jack Swikard. He had no idea. And then
57:54of course things started to happen.
57:56>> What started to happen?
57:58>> Well, they went in various sequence. The
57:59light came on. Something's wrong with
58:00the electrical system. We start we
58:02eventually lost two fuel cells. Couldn't
58:04get them back. Uh then we saw our oxygen
58:07being depleted. One tank was completely
58:09gone. The other tank has started to go
58:10down. Then I looked out the window and
58:12we saw gas escaping from the rear end of
58:14my spacecraft.
58:15>> Well, you didn't you didn't see that now
58:17for about according to the record for 14
58:21minutes before you saw the gas coming.
58:22>> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
58:23>> Okay. Yeah. Let me let me go back. Okay.
58:25I just blew you up. I don't have time to
58:26see the gas yet. You just blew up.
58:29>> You don't know what's going on?
58:31>> Have no idea.
58:32>> No. You say, "Houston, we got a
58:33problem."
58:34>> Yeah.
58:34>> Okay. And what did Houston say?
58:37>> Well, first of all, it was Jack that
58:38said, "Houston, we got a problem." Okay.
58:40And Houston said, "Say again, please."
58:43And I say, "Houston, we have a problem.
58:44We have a main BB bus undervolt." Now,
58:47that was a case of electrical system.
58:49And about that time, Hayes yelled down.
58:52He said, "You know, during training, we
58:54had a problem with one of those fuel
58:55cells. This might be our big problem.
58:57It's electrical problem." And so, we
59:00looked at the fuel cells for what we
59:01were looking to see. And pretty soon you
59:03they got back online then all of a
59:05sudden they died again. Uh and then uh
59:08at one time the oxygen tank gauge went
59:12full high then it went full down
59:14>> and we didn't know is that a you know
59:16instrument problem because obviously we
59:18couldn't lose all the oxygen and you
59:20know this went back and forth. What we
59:22and another thing we tried to do we
59:24didn't know if something hit us. Uh, the
59:27first thing we really did was try to put
59:30the hatch back between the lunar module
59:32and the command module because we
59:34noticed that the command module was
59:35okay, but if the lunar module got a hit,
59:38uh, we slowly lose all the oxy inside
59:40the spacecraft. And so I said, Jack,
59:43close the hatch. Jack went up there to
59:44try to close that, he couldn't do it. I
59:46said, I so I went up there to try to
59:48close it. I couldn't do it. So I said,
59:50"Hey, let's forget it. You know, secure
59:53it to a couch. if if if the Luna module
59:55was hit, we'd be dead by now anyway. And
59:58that's that started the whole sequence
59:59of events. Then we started going look at
1:00:00the instruments and things slowly
1:00:02deteriorated. We looked at the gauges
1:00:04and then of course we looked out the
1:00:05window.
1:00:07>> You look out the window and you see
1:00:09something and then you then you know did
1:00:11you know what that was you were seeing?
1:00:13>> Didn't take much intelligence on my part
1:00:15to realize that the gas escape from the
1:00:16rear end of the needle on my second and
1:00:19last tank were one of the same and very
1:00:21surely we'd be out of oxygen.
1:00:24At this point, what did you do?
1:00:28>> Uh, well, we were we're trying to figure
1:00:30out how much time we had. Do we have
1:00:32enough time? You know, is this a gauge
1:00:34problem? I mean, are we we're talking to
1:00:36the ground? Uh, and by that time, uh, I
1:00:39think we're losing the third fuel cell.
1:00:42And, you know, the oxygen fed the third
1:00:43fuel cell anyway. If we were going to
1:00:45log, we're going to lose the fuel cell.
1:00:47Uh, and about that time we were thinking
1:00:49about, hey, the lunar module, maybe we
1:00:53ought to try to use it somehow, you
1:00:55know, it get back in there at least to
1:00:57protect ourselves because it has oxygen
1:00:59inside.
1:01:00>> Had you ever thought of it as a
1:01:01lifeboat?
1:01:02>> I never did. Uh there had been work done
1:01:06uh in some of the previous simulations
1:01:09of using it but basically using it as an
1:01:13emergency vehicle around the moon in
1:01:15case something happened to the command
1:01:16module. Say say the engine you know
1:01:19fired too much or didn't fire enough and
1:01:20we were some strange orbit about the
1:01:22moon to use the lunar module's decent
1:01:24engine to straighten things out. But we
1:01:26never thought about trying to use the
1:01:28Luna module for a 4day mission to get
1:01:31back to the Earth because the Luna
1:01:33module was only built to last 45 hours.
1:01:36Only built to support two people. And
1:01:38you know, here we are 200,000 miles from
1:01:40Earth and 90 hours from Earth.
1:01:42>> 240,000 miles from Earth.
1:01:44>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:01:45>> And did you
1:01:49I I know what your answer is, but I have
1:01:50to ask you anyway. Did did you think at
1:01:53any time that you were going to be a
1:01:54perpetual monument to the space program,
1:01:56the three of you floating around out
1:01:57there forever?
1:01:59>> The thought crossed our mind that we
1:02:02were in deep trouble. Uh but we never
1:02:04dwelled on it. We never we never, you
1:02:08know, sort of gave up and said, "What
1:02:10what's going to happen if we don't get
1:02:11back? Where are we going to be?" My
1:02:13thoughts were this. if if everything
1:02:16failed and we still had life support in
1:02:19the lunar module but we couldn't get
1:02:21back to the earth you know the heat
1:02:23shield was damaged or or we just went
1:02:26past the earth because the orbit we are
1:02:27on would take us past the earth uh it
1:02:30was close to the point of a push been
1:02:32about 40,000 miles I said that we will
1:02:35send back information we'll keep on
1:02:37operating as long as we can and then
1:02:41that's the end of the deal uh so that
1:02:43was that was what I had planned to do in
1:02:47my mind should uh you know should
1:02:50something happen. People often ask you
1:02:52know this poison pill deal is
1:02:53ridiculous.
1:02:55>> Tell me about that. You didn't have
1:02:56anything to kill yourself with.
1:02:59>> Well, all we had to do was load up the
1:03:00uh cabin vent. Yeah. And you know that's
1:03:03Yeah. We could go on just like that. So
1:03:05So why why bother even bother carrying
1:03:07poison pills? You know.
1:03:08>> Did did the three of you at any time
1:03:10have any conversation about the fact
1:03:12that we bought the farm? We never did.
1:03:15We never admitted to ourselves that,
1:03:18hey, we're not going to make it. Well,
1:03:21the only one time when when Fred looked
1:03:23at the after the Luna module and found
1:03:25out we had about 45 hours worth of power
1:03:28and we were 90 hours from home, he says
1:03:30I think he said something like, "I don't
1:03:32think we're going to make it the way we
1:03:33are right now." And I said, "Fred, oh, I
1:03:34agree with you. Uh, the what we're doing
1:03:37now isn't going to hack it."
1:03:38>> How did the ground sound to you at that
1:03:40time?
1:03:42Well, they first of all they started up
1:03:43and you know uh I we we shut down
1:03:46everything we could when we had the
1:03:48explosion. They said uh and we this was
1:03:50after we saw the oxygen and they said uh
1:03:52yeah we got a lot of guys working on it
1:03:54down here. Uh we'll help you out. Thanks
1:03:57a lot.
1:03:59But I have to tell you that's when they
1:04:00started getting that teamwork together.
1:04:02>> Let me uh let me let me check off some
1:04:04things here that that I would think
1:04:05about. Uh oxygen first of all. You
1:04:07weren't worried you had enough oxygen
1:04:09did you not?
1:04:10We didn't have hard any in the main
1:04:12tanks of the lunar of the command
1:04:13module. We did have in the lunar module
1:04:15oxygen plus the fact we had oxygen in
1:04:17the backpacks which you know we're not
1:04:20going to use on the lunar service so we
1:04:21could tap into that.
1:04:22>> Yeah. Okay. So you we can breathe.
1:04:25>> We can breathe.
1:04:26>> Okay. Uh electricity
1:04:29>> power used batteries and lunar module
1:04:31good for 45 hours. That's that was the
1:04:33normal use of the oxygen or the of the
1:04:36electricity.
1:04:36>> Water.
1:04:37>> Water was important too. not just a
1:04:39drink, but we had to cool all of our
1:04:41electronic systems. And so water was uh
1:04:43was very critical, more so than the
1:04:45oxygen. Of
1:04:47>> course, later on we turned on all the
1:04:48electrical equipment anyway.
1:04:49>> But you you almost dehydrated through
1:04:52this whole thing when you got back, did
1:04:53you not?
1:04:53>> Well, yeah, because uh uh because of a
1:04:57edict that I put out by reducing the
1:04:59water intake to to make sure we had
1:05:01plenty of water for our systems. I
1:05:03probably went overboard in that and uh
1:05:05we we probably could have used a little
1:05:06bit more water.
1:05:07>> Food.
1:05:08>> Didn't think about it. Absolutely did
1:05:11not think about food.
1:05:12>> You had four days. You got to think
1:05:13about something.
1:05:14>> I know. We went up there and, you know,
1:05:15we grabbed something and whatever it
1:05:17was, whoseever it was, we ate it. The
1:05:20hot dogs, you know, the movie was
1:05:22correct. The hot dogs were frozen. I did
1:05:25get uh Jack up there to get all the
1:05:27water out of the command module. either
1:05:29I put it in orange juice bags or
1:05:31something like that so that before it
1:05:33froze and to you know have enough water
1:05:35down there for that and so that's what
1:05:37he did.
1:05:38>> How uncomfortable was it?
1:05:40>> Cold and clammy they uh it was uh very
1:05:45sort of clammy uh very cold temperature
1:05:48kept dropping all the way down because
1:05:49we normally would keep the temperature
1:05:51normal or by by balancing the heat load
1:05:54from the electrical systems. Uh, and
1:05:57people often ask, and I thought about it
1:05:59too. Should we put on our space suits?
1:06:02And then I thought against that because
1:06:04they've been very bulky with three of
1:06:05us. You know, Luna module was only built
1:06:07for two people.
1:06:07>> Not room enough.
1:06:08>> Not room enough. And also, uh, that it's
1:06:11it'd be clammy, it's rubberized, and if
1:06:14we started to persspire inside and it's
1:06:15cold outside, uh, that wouldn't be too
1:06:18good. Anyway, uh, Hayes and I did put on
1:06:20our Luna boots. We we put those on. Poor
1:06:23Jack didn't have any. And so and then we
1:06:25had a leak in the water system a little
1:06:27bit and we got a little bit of water in
1:06:29there. So
1:06:30>> the uh the inside of the place is
1:06:33there's moisture all over everything.
1:06:35The last place you want to see moisture
1:06:37collect.
1:06:38>> That's right. Especially in the command
1:06:40module which was really dark and clammy.
1:06:43Nothing in there. Not even body heat
1:06:44because most of us spent our time in the
1:06:45lunar module. Uh it was bad. the uh the
1:06:50jerryrig box for the the lithium hydro
1:06:54hydroxide. Yeah. Is that what it's
1:06:55called?
1:06:55>> Yeah. There
1:06:56>> that has everybody talks about that.
1:06:58Tell me the truth about that.
1:07:00>> Well, the truth is that what you saw in
1:07:02the movie is pretty pretty much the
1:07:04truth. What happened was in the lunar
1:07:07module and which we didn't think about
1:07:08at the time but some of the people at
1:07:10Cruise Systems did that the round
1:07:13canisters
1:07:14were devised developed to support two
1:07:17people for two days and that they were
1:07:21round and that they were lithium
1:07:23hydroxide that remove the carbon
1:07:24dioxide. Now they were becoming
1:07:27saturated and the partial pressure of of
1:07:30carbon dioxide was rising. Something
1:07:32that we didn't really notice at first,
1:07:35but ground started to notice it and they
1:07:37started to try to figure out what they
1:07:38could do. Now in the dead command
1:07:41module, they used in their environmental
1:07:44system square canisters.
1:07:47Had plenty of them, but you can't put a
1:07:50square canister in the round hole of the
1:07:53lunar module system. big engineering
1:07:55goof. Why we had square there, we had
1:07:58round over there, we'll never know. So,
1:08:00what the Groove Systems came up with was
1:08:03how to juryrig a square canister to work
1:08:06in the Luna module. We did it with tape,
1:08:08plastic, cardboard, and an old sock. And
1:08:11by gosh, it worked.
1:08:14>> They called up to you and say, "Take a
1:08:16piece of tape about as long as your arm
1:08:17or
1:08:17>> Yeah. Well, they first of all, they
1:08:18said, "Take take a piece of duct tape
1:08:20about three feet." Well, maybe long as
1:08:22your arm.
1:08:22>> Yeah. And so that's what we did.
1:08:24>> Okay.
1:08:24>> And uh
1:08:25>> you're saying for what?
1:08:26>> Yeah. And essentially Jack and I started
1:08:30to build this thing and we we just
1:08:32according to the instructions. So the
1:08:33instructions were very explicit and it
1:08:35was a great job. And if you look at the
1:08:38the one that the crew systems had made
1:08:40to show the people in the control center
1:08:42and you look at the one that's hanging
1:08:43on the lunar module wall, they're
1:08:46identical.
1:08:48All this time you have all of you must
1:08:52have serious sleep deprivation problems.
1:08:55I mean you guys got to be just dog
1:08:57tired.
1:08:58>> Yeah. Actual sleep was very very
1:09:00limited. Uh maybe I had one hour if you
1:09:03want to count it in 40. You we try to
1:09:05sleep up in the command module. A funny
1:09:08phenomena though. If you go in the dead
1:09:10command module and no one else is around
1:09:12and you stay very quiet, your body heats
1:09:15up the air next to you because in zero
1:09:19gravity there's no convection so hot air
1:09:21doesn't rise so it doesn't bring in cold
1:09:23air. Your body it's like a little
1:09:25blanket.
1:09:26>> Uh but you know it worked to a little
1:09:28degree. We found out though that sleep
1:09:30is something that you could get a few
1:09:32winks of and then then and be relaxed
1:09:35again. For instance, even on duty, I'd
1:09:37put my fingers like this and I close my
1:09:39eyes and maybe I'd fall asleep for a
1:09:40minute or two, wake up and I'd be okay
1:09:42again. Uh, so it's a it's, you know,
1:09:45catching little naps at a time.
1:09:47>> Were you did you allow everybody to
1:09:48sleep at once or did you try to sleep?
1:09:50>> No, we all had someone stayed on duty.
1:09:52>> You had to somebody had to stay awake
1:09:53all night.
1:09:53>> Yeah, we we kept somebody on awake and
1:09:55usually it was Fred by himself and Jack
1:09:57and I try to get some sleep. we uh we
1:09:59get to the point where uh where things
1:10:01are as under control as they're going to
1:10:03get for a while, but you got to figure
1:10:05out something to see so you know when to
1:10:08fire your thrusters and there's a
1:10:11there's a telescope, an atto in here,
1:10:12and you're supposed to find a star with
1:10:14it. Is that right?
1:10:15>> Well, there's two things about the
1:10:16telescope.
1:10:17>> Okay.
1:10:18uh when we are going to come around and
1:10:20we're going to make a second burn this a
1:10:22speed up burn to come home we are
1:10:25worried that I made a mistake including
1:10:29myself was worried of transferring the
1:10:31angle data from the command modules uh
1:10:35guidance system properly into the lunar
1:10:38module system. Now we had to have that
1:10:42guidance system lunar module to get the
1:10:43proper attitude to make the proper speed
1:10:45up burn.
1:10:47So the ground then determined a method
1:10:49of trying to see if that data was any
1:10:52good
1:10:53by because we could not see any stars.
1:10:55There was no all the debris was around
1:10:57the spacecraft. It was following us. So
1:10:59there was no way of seeing stars to do
1:11:00the normal navigation. But the sun is a
1:11:03star. So we put into the computer and
1:11:07the guidance system to point the
1:11:09telescope at the sun which is a star. If
1:11:13it did, then we knew that the
1:11:16information was correct in the computer.
1:11:18So, that's what we did. We put it in
1:11:20there. We let the spacecraft jog around
1:11:22and then point the telescope. And if you
1:11:25hear our conversations, it's a little
1:11:26bit like uh my fair lady, you know. H
1:11:30she's got it. I think she got it. Oh.
1:11:32Oh, yeah. I think she Yeah. Yeah. She's
1:11:33got Yep. He got it. Yeah. There it is.
1:11:35The sun. So, that was the first thing we
1:11:37passed that. So, we knew the guy says,
1:11:39"Okay, for that long burn." So, we made
1:11:41that long burn and everything was fine.
1:11:43And right after that, we shut everything
1:11:44down because we had to save electrical
1:11:46power. We're flying by the seat of our
1:11:48pants now.
1:11:49>> It's just a fast burn you're talking
1:11:50about here.
1:11:51>> Yeah. Four and a half minutes.
1:11:52>> Stayed on for four and a half minutes.
1:11:53This rocket engine pushed us faster and
1:11:55faster on the way home.
1:11:56>> Yeah. Then the ground had been tracking
1:11:59us by this time and they thought and we
1:12:02had we got back on that free return
1:12:04course on an earlier burn but they they
1:12:07looked at it and tracked us and and and
1:12:09uh uh interpolated our extract our our
1:12:12course all the way back to the earth and
1:12:14found out we were going to miss the
1:12:14earth. We are no longer on the free
1:12:16return uh course. Well, what can we do?
1:12:20We everything is shut down. We don't we
1:12:22don't have that guidance system anymore.
1:12:23We don't have anything. And uh that's
1:12:26when they said uh uh we're you know they
1:12:30gave us the procedures about using the
1:12:31earth and I said I know those procedures
1:12:33because we had them developed in Apollo
1:12:358 and when I was doing the navigation
1:12:38stuff we developed those procedures but
1:12:40we took them out of our flight manuals
1:12:41after Apollo 8 because we never thought
1:12:43they'd ever be used and the I remember
1:12:45the ground said yeah we thought you
1:12:47would remember those procedures and so
1:12:49maybe it was very appropriate that I was
1:12:51on Apollo 8 and we used the Earth and
1:12:53the Earth's terminator as a guiding post
1:12:55and uh uh we uh burned uh to get back in
1:12:59the proper angle to get back home again.
1:13:01>> You're coming down. Uh you you know
1:13:04you've made it, but you're not quite
1:13:06sure whether anything is going to work.
1:13:07You know the parachute's going to come
1:13:09out. You know the heat shield is going
1:13:10to work. You know anything's going to
1:13:11work.
1:13:12>> Those two things you mentioned are very
1:13:13important, the heat shield and the
1:13:15parachutes. Because when we when we
1:13:16jettisoned the service module and it
1:13:18floated on by and we saw this big gaping
1:13:21hole, this panel blown out, that worried
1:13:24us that our heat shield was damaged
1:13:26because it was right next to our heat
1:13:28shield. And there was nothing we could
1:13:29do about that. I mean, we were coming,
1:13:32we're aim for the earth, we're going to
1:13:33come into the earth. That was the end of
1:13:34the deal. If it if we're going to burn
1:13:35up, we're going to burn up. And then, of
1:13:37course, we knew all the way through. The
1:13:39ground didn't know for the longest time
1:13:40what happened. The last crisis, of
1:13:42course, were those parachutes because
1:13:43the pyrochnics that put out those
1:13:45shoots, which we normally keep warm with
1:13:47electrical power, uh were cold soaked
1:13:49for four days. So, we didn't know
1:13:51they're going to fire. And if they
1:13:53didn't fire, even though we got through
1:13:54the atmosphere, we still hit the water a
1:13:56pretty fast rate of speed,
1:13:58>> but they fired.
1:13:59>> They fired. We came down
1:14:02>> at that point. You know, you're home
1:14:04free.
1:14:05>> I knew I was home free. eventually home
1:14:07free completely when the spacecraft
1:14:09bobbed up and I saw water on the windows
1:14:11and the thing didn't sink.
1:14:13>> But up to that point you did
1:14:17I'm I'm looking for the the most
1:14:19frightening point of this whole thing
1:14:21when it exploded when you realized that
1:14:23you had a problem or when you when you
1:14:25were coming down wondering whether that
1:14:27shoot's going to deploy. The most
1:14:28frightening moment of this whole thing
1:14:30was when the explosion occurred and then
1:14:33after a little period of time and saw
1:14:35the oxygen escaping and we didn't have
1:14:36solutions to get home because we knew we
1:14:39were in deep deep trouble. And it, you
1:14:42know, I I always compare this like a
1:14:45solitire, a game of solitire. You turn
1:14:47up a card and that's a crisis. If you
1:14:49can put it someplace, the mission keeps
1:14:51going. The game keeps going. If you pull
1:14:53up a card and there's no place to put
1:14:54it, the game's over. That never occurred
1:14:56to us. What kind of impact did that
1:14:59adventure, and I use that word
1:15:02advisedly, have on you personally?
1:15:06>> I don't worry about crisis any longer. I
1:15:08mean, seriously. I mean, I I look at
1:15:10them uh I say to myself whenever I I
1:15:14have a problem with something like that
1:15:15or I'm trouble with someone or
1:15:17somebody's sick or something like that,
1:15:18I say, "I could have been gone back in
1:15:221970. I'm still here. I'm still
1:15:23breathing." Uh, so I don't I don't worry
1:15:26about crisis.
1:15:27>> Uh, what caused you to write the the
1:15:30perilous voyage of Apollo 13?
1:15:33>> Uh, after we got back on the carrier,
1:15:35the three of us, Swanker, Hayes, and
1:15:36myself, and we looked at each other and
1:15:38we dusted ourselves off, and hey, we're
1:15:40still alive. And we said, you know, this
1:15:43this this flight has got a lot of
1:15:45adventure to it. Even before the
1:15:46explosion, you know, things happened
1:15:48that were entirely different on this
1:15:49flight. We ought to put this down on
1:15:51paper. We ought to write something about
1:15:53it. So we all vowed that we would write
1:15:56something on paper. Of course, the best,
1:15:58you know, the best intentions. Uh Jack
1:16:02eventually went to politics. Fred went
1:16:03in the aerospace industry. I got in the
1:16:05telephone industry. Jack died in ' 83.
1:16:08Uh and uh I retired in in ' 91. And I I
1:16:13still had my office and my secretary.
1:16:15And I the day after I retired, I went
1:16:17back there and I said, "What should we
1:16:18do? Don't have to worry about telephones
1:16:20any longer." and she said, 'Why don't
1:16:22you write that book you've been telling
1:16:23me about for the last 14 years.' I said,
1:16:26'Good idea, but I'm not an author. I've
1:16:29written a lot of articles. And
1:16:31fortunately, about that time, a young
1:16:32man who was a writer for the Discover
1:16:34magazine, Jeff Kuger, wrote and said,
1:16:37I'd like to do a story on it.
1:16:40>> This is tape three, James A. Love Jr.,
1:16:43your secretary said, why don't you why
1:16:45don't you write that book you've been
1:16:46talking about for 14 years?
1:16:47>> And I said, not a bad idea. I said, uh,
1:16:50so I started to, you know, try to figure
1:16:51out how to write the book. I'm not a
1:16:53professional author. Uh, and about that
1:16:55time though, out of the blue, very
1:16:57fortunately, a young man wrote me a
1:16:59letter said, "I've never written a book
1:17:00before, but I'm a I'm a writer for the
1:17:02Discover magazine. I think Apollo 13
1:17:04would make an interesting story. Can you
1:17:06help me?" And his name was Jeff Kuger.
1:17:08And I said, "More than that, I said, I
1:17:10like to do the same thing. I like the
1:17:12way he wrote." And so we co-authored the
1:17:14book Lost Moon. How long before
1:17:17Hollywood discovered lost that that
1:17:19book?
1:17:20>> It's kind of interesting. We wrote one
1:17:22chapter and then we put a an outline on
1:17:24either side of that chapter and this is
1:17:26a proposal for a book publisher and so
1:17:28our agents sent it around to various
1:17:30book publishers to see who would want to
1:17:32want to back us up and we we finally
1:17:34found one uh Hoot Mifflin and so I was
1:17:37very happy. Uh this is something to keep
1:17:39me off the golf course. This is
1:17:40postretirement. Uh, and I we had not yet
1:17:44written another chapter. We were doing
1:17:46research. We were calling up, you know,
1:17:48people down here at NASA, our old
1:17:49friends, to say, "Could you help us out?
1:17:50Could you give us a hand?" Uh, and I was
1:17:53sitting at my desk. This is about two
1:17:55months after we started. And I got a
1:17:57call from our agent and he said, "Are
1:18:00you sitting down?" And I said, "Yes."
1:18:02And I thought maybe the book publisher
1:18:03was going to back out of this whole
1:18:05project. And he said, "We just sold your
1:18:07book to the movies.
1:18:10I said, 'We haven't written it yet.
1:18:11Isn't it Isn't that illegal? You know,
1:18:15and he said, 'N no, it's done all the
1:18:16time. What he they actually sold was an
1:18:18option to do the story to Imagine
1:18:21Entertainment, which was Ron Howard's
1:18:23company.
1:18:24>> And uh uh what turned the option of
1:18:27course into a finished product was the
1:18:30lead actor Tom Hanks. Uh he uh uh is a
1:18:34closet astronaut. The guy is a space
1:18:36enthusiast. when he heard through his
1:18:39agent that Ron Howard had an option to
1:18:41do a story on Apollo 13, which he knew
1:18:43about and I didn't even realize that, he
1:18:46lobbied for the job. And when Universal
1:18:48heard that Ron Howard had Tom Hanks, who
1:18:52had just gotten the Oscar for the movie
1:18:54Philadelphia, I think it was at that
1:18:55time, uh, uh, they decided to do the
1:18:58movie and that's how it got started.
1:19:00>> And what did your wife say when you
1:19:01said, "Guess who's going to play me in
1:19:03the movie?"
1:19:03>> Couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe
1:19:06it. Actually, when when I had an
1:19:08interview with Ron Howard after he
1:19:09bought the option, and this was before
1:19:11Hanks or anybody aboard, this is we went
1:19:13out there for about five hours to to
1:19:15talk over this the story about Apollo 13
1:19:17at the end when I was about ready to
1:19:19leave, he said, "Who who would you like
1:19:21to play your part?" And now I don't know
1:19:24much about actors or actresses, but I
1:19:26had seen the movie Dances with Wolves
1:19:28about six or eight months before, and I
1:19:29said Kevin Cosner.
1:19:32And Hanks never for less me forget that
1:19:35I said that, you know, and of course,
1:19:38but Hanks did a great job.
1:19:40>> Were you were you frightened about what
1:19:42Hollywood might do to your story?
1:19:45>> Yes, I was to a degree because I'd heard
1:19:47these stories of famous authors who
1:19:49don't like the way their books are
1:19:50portrayed on the screen. And of course,
1:19:52when you buy after I read the contract,
1:19:55uh when you when you sell the book to
1:19:56the movies,
1:19:57>> you sold it.
1:19:58>> You sold it, they could put it on Mars,
1:19:59you know, and do anything they want. But
1:20:01I have to be quite honest, we I could
1:20:03not have picked a better production team
1:20:06with with Ron Howard, a better group of
1:20:09actors and also Kathleen Quinn, who
1:20:12played my wife, than the group that they
1:20:14had gathered together to do that movie.
1:20:16It was perfect. And uh it was a win-win
1:20:18situation for everybody. NASA certainly,
1:20:21I think, uh uh liked it. We used the
1:20:24zerog airplane to get the zerog
1:20:26sequences in it. The first time it ever
1:20:28been done. Uh the public enjoyed it. I
1:20:31think uh I'm happy. Jeff Kruger is happy
1:20:34the way the book was portrayed. So it
1:20:36was it was quite a deal.
1:20:38>> There have been all kinds of books about
1:20:40the astronauts and about the various
1:20:43space flights. Uh ha have has NASA and
1:20:47have you gentlemen been treated fairly
1:20:49by the popular press?
1:20:52>> Uh I think so. There's always critics uh
1:20:57and I and especially the movie the when
1:21:00the movie came out uh some the space
1:21:02enthusiasts here you know all the space
1:21:04guys here said there's 125 mistakes in
1:21:06that movie
1:21:08>> but but you know we've been uh nicely
1:21:11handled by the press with the with the
1:21:12book uh I wrote it or we wrote it I
1:21:15should say in the we frame not in other
1:21:18words I did this or I did that. It's not
1:21:20a biography or an autobiography. It is
1:21:23it is that we talk about level we talk
1:21:25about Hayes we talk about Jean Craz we
1:21:27talk about you know all the people
1:21:29because we wanted to write it in that
1:21:30way.
1:21:31>> Why did you decide to leave NASA?
1:21:34>> Uh a good question. I uh while I was
1:21:37doing some work at towards the after my
1:21:40Apollo 13 flight, I was originally on
1:21:42some of the uh uh uh the work on the
1:21:45initial shuttle and then I went over
1:21:47became a deputy director of the science
1:21:49and applications directorate and during
1:21:50that period of time NASA sent me to the
1:21:52advanced management program at Harvard
1:21:55and there I probably learned just enough
1:21:57about business to be dangerous but I
1:21:59came to a crossroads. The Navy had been
1:22:01calling me, uh, what do you want to do?
1:22:04Come back in the Navy. Uh, we'll try to
1:22:07get you the proper assignment. I could
1:22:09have stayed here at NASA. Uh, but
1:22:11probably retired from the Navy and
1:22:12become a GS of some sort. Or I could
1:22:15retire permanently and go into private
1:22:18enterprise. And when I looked going back
1:22:20at the Navy, I said, 'Well, you know, I
1:22:23was a captain for six or seven years and
1:22:25I said, if if I'm up for selection for
1:22:27admiral and there's several people to
1:22:30fill that billet and I was a selection
1:22:32officer, who would I pick? Would I pick
1:22:34Levelville who spent 11 years at NASA or
1:22:36would I pick this fellow who spent, you
1:22:38know, two terms, two tours at Vietnam,
1:22:42at the Naval War College, and all these
1:22:45really, you know, positions to go up to
1:22:47be an admiral. I said I picked that guy
1:22:48over there, not level. And that made the
1:22:50decision that I should go into private
1:22:52practice.
1:22:53>> You were in the towing business, the the
1:22:56boat business for a while
1:22:57>> right here in Houston, Texas in Bay
1:22:59Houston towing. I tried my hand at that
1:23:01uh for four years. Very lucrative
1:23:04business. Enjoyed it, but there was no
1:23:06future for me there.
1:23:07>> Telephone business. I got in the
1:23:09telephone business at the right time at
1:23:12the right place by the husband of of Ed
1:23:17White's widow who she married five years
1:23:18later and uh it was just when AT&T the
1:23:23bell system was uh getting ready to
1:23:26deregulate the vestigure was coming up.
1:23:28We were selling telephone systems. Uh
1:23:30our little company went from 8 million
1:23:32to 40 million and then Sentel
1:23:34Corporation bought us and uh and then I
1:23:37went up to Sentel.
1:23:38>> Now you're now you work with uh Mission
1:23:40Home. What is mission home? Uh about
1:23:43several years ago, uh the uh National
1:23:46Space Society and the US Space
1:23:48Foundation got together with the
1:23:50Alliance of aerospace Companies trying
1:23:53to educate the public on the real
1:23:56benefits of the space program to show
1:23:58them what what has been accomplished
1:24:01that is helping them out today and what
1:24:02can be done in the future. And uh
1:24:06harvesting opportunities from mother
1:24:07earth is home. And that was that was the
1:24:10whole idea. uh to do uh at that time to
1:24:14do seminars around the country. Uh I
1:24:16wrote an op-ed piece which is still
1:24:18going on in various newspapers uh and to
1:24:22try to get people interested and they
1:24:24got other astronauts, retired guys
1:24:26basically to do it. It's changed its uh
1:24:29its name a little bit now. I think it's
1:24:30called Space Alliance and they're still
1:24:32trying to uh to accomplish that goal.
1:24:34>> Are you disappointed that that here
1:24:36we've gone what 30 years since we walked
1:24:40on the moon and and
1:24:42we haven't gone any further than we've
1:24:43gone with the space program.
1:24:45>> Uh yes, to some degree I am. Uh the
1:24:48disappointment comes in the fact that I
1:24:50guess this being a democracy, we got got
1:24:52all sorts of controversy and we we weigh
1:24:54things and the compromises are always
1:24:56the name of the game. But we waffled in
1:24:58the late 80s and the early 90s on the
1:25:00internet or on a space station. I don't
1:25:02know how many designs of a space station
1:25:04we had. Either it was too big, too
1:25:06complicated, too expensive. uh and we
1:25:10didn't realize at the time and maybe a
1:25:12consortium of countries working together
1:25:14uh in that respect I think the president
1:25:16administration eventually did the the
1:25:18administrator Dan Goolan finally
1:25:20realized that uh although some of our
1:25:23partners are are are are lacking quite a
1:25:26bit like Russia. Uh but uh but I think
1:25:29we're finally on the right track. But we
1:25:30did waffle. We we wasted an awful lot of
1:25:32money. We wasted an awful lot of time
1:25:34and a lot of effort of not really
1:25:37knowing what we wanted to do, how we
1:25:40wanted to proceed with NASA. You know,
1:25:42it's like that old saying, after you've
1:25:43been to Paris, what else is there? Uh,
1:25:45after we've been to the moon, what else
1:25:46is there? Well, that was a great
1:25:48triumph. Everybody still relates back to
1:25:50that. But that's 30 years ago.
1:25:53>> Yeah,
1:25:53>> we got to work now today. We got to do
1:25:55something today and we are doing a lot
1:25:57of things today. Uh, but you know, you
1:25:59get repetition. You get 90ome shuttles
1:26:01now. uh and one one accident everybody
1:26:05says ho h we don't we're trying to tell
1:26:08people what we really do up there
1:26:09>> but you know captain we we went to the
1:26:11moon the first time because of the cold
1:26:13war Apollo 8 speeded up because the
1:26:16Russians were coming there really was a
1:26:18space race
1:26:19>> I mean that may be an old saying but
1:26:22there it was there is no race anymore
1:26:24there there's there's nothing to propel
1:26:26us to go if we don't really think about
1:26:29it you know
1:26:30>> well you're absolutely right as far as
1:26:32far as competition goes, there is not
1:26:34that incentive to try to beat somebody
1:26:36else. And that was the whole deal. And
1:26:37you know, the Russians themselves were
1:26:39interested in beating us, not so much at
1:26:42military missiles, but going to the
1:26:44moon. That was their goal just as much
1:26:46as it was our goal. Uh but now we have
1:26:48cooperation. Now it's a little bit more
1:26:50subtle. Now, if we can all work together
1:26:52and work as a team to accomplish things
1:26:55and get our mind off of other things, uh
1:26:58I think there is there is a hope for us.
1:27:01But uh whether that will ever come to
1:27:02pass in real life, the Russians still
1:27:04are very much interested in their
1:27:05mirror. I mean, it's theirs. It's long
1:27:08past this time. Should have been brought
1:27:10down a long time ago. They could do a
1:27:12lot more on the International Space
1:27:13Station they could ever do on the
1:27:14mirror. And uh we have to wait till it
1:27:17gets done.
1:27:17>> Will our grandchildren see people go to
1:27:19Mars?
1:27:21>> Uh perhaps your grandchildren I think
1:27:24are there'll be the attempts there'll be
1:27:26the work on doing. I I think the Mars
1:27:28mission is within the next 20 to 25
1:27:31years. Now that seems strange for me to
1:27:34say when you look back on going to the
1:27:36moon in 69 you say yo 20 years that was
1:27:38that was 49 you know no one ever think
1:27:42if someone asked me in 49 1949 are we
1:27:44going to land on the moon in 1969 I say
1:27:46you're absolutely crazy. Yeah.
1:27:48>> So it might be that it speed it up. I
1:27:49hope so.
1:27:50>> But it's interesting that you say think
1:27:52about and say probably the old way of
1:27:54saying it would have been you bet. You
1:27:56bet. But now there's not a certain you
1:27:58bet about it anymore.
1:27:59>> No, I have to be uh pragmatic about the
1:28:01whole thing. I mean, we have to know
1:28:04there are other there are other
1:28:05commitments we have to do. Uh Mars will
1:28:08be a again a consortium of countries. It
1:28:10will not be just the United States and
1:28:12we these countries have to get together
1:28:13to work together. It it will be a major
1:28:15project. Uh and uh there is some doubt
1:28:18whether we could ever do it. I know I
1:28:20talked to Bill Anders who uh got his
1:28:22masters in nuclear engineering and he
1:28:24said you don't understand the radiation
1:28:26once we get out there for long periods
1:28:27of time. You know we'll do you in before
1:28:30you get there. So if he's right then
1:28:32maybe a Martian trip is not feasible.
1:28:35>> What's your uh what was your finest
1:28:37moment at NASA?
1:28:41I think the finest moment in NASA was
1:28:44the uh the time we landed on Apollo 8
1:28:47and came back and uh had the press
1:28:50conference
1:28:52and it suddenly dawned on us is suddenly
1:28:55realized what we had done. You know, at
1:28:57the time you're doing something, you
1:28:58don't realize what you're doing. You
1:28:59know what I mean? It's a it's work,
1:29:01you're doing this, you're doing that.
1:29:02It's only when the thing's accomplished
1:29:04and you come back again and say, "Gee,
1:29:06we did we did that." you know, this
1:29:09really was the case. Uh, we were there
1:29:12and we saw the moon and we saw the far
1:29:14side of the moon which no one had ever
1:29:15seen, you know, before live. We had some
1:29:18pictures of it, but that was it. That
1:29:20was the high point of my career. And I
1:29:23and I I agree with a lot of people in
1:29:25NASA. I think that was the high point of
1:29:26NASA's career, too.

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