_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [62]
March turned into April, and April turned into May, and Charlie Brown and Snoopy, the lunar ships of Apollo 10, eased into the unfiltered sunlight piercing the moon’s black sky. They were circling the lunar surface to perfect navigating to and from future landing sites. The Sea of Tranquility, so named by ancient astronomers who thought it to be a smooth body of water, was the main target.
John Young was the pilot of the big command module Charlie Brown. And when commander Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan drifted away in the lunar module Snoopy for its vital test, Young was all too aware that his ship was the only ticket home his two friends had. Make a mistake, and he’d be returning home alone.
Young triggered a burst from Charlie Brown’s maneuvering rockets and pulled away. Inside Snoopy, Stafford and Cernan saw the command ship leaving, and they held tight for a moment, watching it shrink into the distance.
“Have a good time while we’re gone, babe,” Cernan radioed a good-bye to Young.
Stafford keyed his mike. “Don’t get lonesome out there, John.”
Cernan added, “Don’t accept any TEI updates.”
TEI stood for Trans Earth Insertion, the computer commands Young would need to blast out of lunar orbit and head home.
The command module pilot laughed. “Don’t you worry, Charlie Brown wouldn’t think of leaving without you.”
The banter was fighter-pilot stuff.
The two ships kept drifting apart over the craters and lunar mountains, and then, an hour later, on the backside of the moon, it was time to fire the descent engine that would send Snoopy on its rocket-control approach to the lunar landscape. The moon was blocking radio contact and Mission Control was going through another bout of nail-biting as the astronauts were moving through critical moves out of touch. But not for long. Suddenly, we heard the excited voice of John Young from Charlie Brown. “They are down there,” he told flight controllers. “They are among the rocks, rambling through the boulders.”
My co-anchor, Russ Ward, and I were on the air, live from the NBC Broadcast Studio atop the Nassau Bay Hotel across the street from Mission Control. We were feeding every word from lunar orbit to our anxious listeners. We had flown to Houston minutes after Apollo 10 blasted onto its Trans Lunar Insertion flight course to the moon, and when the astronauts spoke we would shut up. Snoopy came around the moon and an excited Tom Stafford said, “There are enough boulders around here to fill up Galveston Bay. It’s a fascinating sight. Okay, we’re coming up over the landing site. There are plenty of holes there. The surface is actually very smooth, like a very wet clay—with the exception of the big craters.”
Gene Cernan hopped in with unrestrained excitement. “We’re right there! We’re right over it!” he shouted as Snoopy raced moonward to within its planned nine miles above the Sea of Tranquility. “I’m telling you, we are low, we are close, babe!”
Stafford’s voice followed, equally excited. “All you have to do is put your tail wheel down and we’re there!”
This was exciting stuff. Jim Holton, our senior producer, held up a sign he had written: “Stay with this! No sign offs!” And we did—filling in live the details of the astronauts racing through lunar orbit, flying upside down and backward. Then it was time for the critical dismembering of Snoopy—separating the lunar module so the legless upper portion would return them to Charlie Brown. The procedure would begin with casting off Snoopy’s descent stage by firing a set of pyrotechnic bolts. We held our collective breaths, and astronaut Cernan issued a warning. “That mother may give us a kick. You ready?” he asked Stafford as he fired the bolts, only to see everything before