_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [77]
He had been called upon then to save America’s space future from the myopic, from those who were so eager to quit in the face of what they judged to be Russian superiority. They were convinced the Russians could never be matched, let alone exceeded. The decade since has shown them to be wrong, and we of confidence, this night, were aware that even though Apollo 13’s crew had been safely returned to Earth, the never-finish-anything crowd were certain the mission had been a failure.
It was equally clear to us that Alan Shepard had more than a space flight to command. He again carried the full weight of Apollo on his shoulders. If Apollo 14 succeeded, he would share the accolades. If it failed, he alone would bear the burden. I found comfort in the thought that I was damn sure Shepard was up to it.
Jack King (second from right) escorts astronaut Alan Shepard (third from right) and his crew as their mammoth Apollo 14 moon rocket is moved to its launch pad. (NASA).
The next morning, Apollo 13’s astronauts were headed home to take their place in NASA’s future. Instead of Apollo 13 being NASA’s darkest defeat, it was clearly the agency’s finest hour, thanks to the men and women who would not accept failure as an option.
Inside the wings of Air Force One and the White House Press Corps’ jet on April 19, 1970, sat the mellow and satisfied. Who said a superb glass of wine wasn’t good for the soul?
Below, for that single day at least, all was right on a planet called Earth.
SIXTEEN
On the Moon
Astronauts Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell had named their lunar module Antares, and after their quarter-of-a-million-mile journey of fits and starts, they were on the moon, ready to plant their boots in lunar soil. Shepard was first. He stepped off Antares’s small porch and moved slowly down the ladder. He paused on the last rung. The last three-and-a-half feet were only a lazy drop for the carrier pilot.
Like the mythical bird of yore, NASA’s Apollo 14 Phoenix had risen from Apollo 13’s ashes, equipped with more reliable hardware and safeguards. But, more important to members of the space family, America’s first astronaut was in command. Alan Shepard would be the only one of the Mercury group to reach the moon. He had gone for all seven, for all of us who’d been there with him from the beginning. The lunar dust he’d kicked up with his drop to the surface settled quickly as he paused. “It’s been a long way,” the son of New Hampshire spoke quietly, “but…we’re here!”
Alan was talking about all the years he and his friend Deke Slayton had been grounded with ailments, all the years they’d watched others go, and Deke in Mission Control answered with affection, “Not bad for an old man.”
Shepard had reached the moon at age forty-seven. The country’s original astronaut turned slowly, pushing his boots into the grayish-brown dust, reminding himself no living creature had ever done this before in this desolate, silent world. “Gazing around at the bleak landscape, it certainly is a stark place here at Fra Mauro,” he said as if he were speaking only to Deke and those in Mission Control. “It’s made all the more stark by the fact that the sky is completely dark.” He surveyed the wide lunar landscape, turning his back to the dazzling sun. “This is a very tough place, guys.”
Ed Mitchell worked his way down the ladder. The MIT Ph.D. of everything technical dropped to the surface and quickly began moving about, testing his body’s reactions to the weak gravity in a world one-sixth the mass of his own. Mitchell was the first of a new breed of astronaut. He was a member of academia instead