Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [103]
Leading up to Challenger, America had pinned bright hopes on the new shuttle orbiter fleet, with its runway landings and seven-to eight-person capacity, to enable people other than NASA’s professional astronauts to fly into space. In 1982, NASA’s Advisory Council even established a task force to select private citizens for extra seats that might be available on each flight, and applications soon arrived by the scores. In the year before the Challenger accident, NASA flew two members of Congress, Senator Jake Garn and Representative Bill Nelson, on two separate shuttle missions, hoping, I’m sure, that they would bring back glowing firsthand accounts of the shuttle program and how taxpayer dollars were being well spent.
James A. Michener, noted author of the book Space, which was later made into a thirteen-hour miniseries for television, had conducted a study group and recommended that NASA include teachers and journalists on space shuttle flights. I was quite supportive of that idea, but wanted to take it one step further, allowing on board creative artists, musicians, singers, movie producers, and anyone who could connect to a large segment of the public. One person who genuinely wanted to fly in the space shuttle was my friend, the singer, songwriter, and actor John Denver.
Denver, who had written such hits as “Rocky Mountain High,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” was fascinated with space travel. John attended the launch of the first internationally manned spaceflight, Apollo/Soyuz 1, as well as the launch of Apollo/Soyuz 2, and the landing of the space shuttle. He passed NASA’s physical examination to determine mental and physical fitness needed for space travel, and he became one of the leading candidates to be the “first civilian in space.” John was planning on writing a song while up in space, but Christa McAuliffe was chosen to make that flight instead. He did, however, get to fly and land the Space Shuttle simulator. An airplane accident took his life before he was able to realize his dream of flying into space. Because of his tremendous support, NASA awarded John its public service medal for helping “increase awareness of space exploration by the people of the world.”
Unfortunately, after Christa McAuliffe died in the 1986 Challenger accident, NASA lost its nerve for putting civilians into space. In my opinion, barring any accidents, sending somebody like John Denver into space would be much more effective in the long term than putting schoolteachers and journalists into space, as fine as that might be. My reasoning is that artists such as John Denver and others like him reach far more people than do most teachers and journalists. Certainly, I believe in educators, and have spoken at numerous schools in attempts to inspire the next generation of explorers, and I will continue to do so. And of course I know the power that journalists have to get out a message. But to truly touch people where they are, nothing can do it better than a song or a movie or some creative work that lands squarely in the heart. I felt that NASA missed a golden opportunity when they did not include John Denver on a space shuttle mission.
AS WINTER GAVE way to spring, there remained an emptiness in my life that could only be filled by one person. I decided to break down and call Lois. Near the end of March, I knew that Lois would be returning to California, and I hoped that she might be willing to see me. I truly missed her. About two days after I thought she might be home, I called and was pleasantly surprised when she answered the phone. Acting just as casual as if our last meeting had ended on a high note, I spoke congenially: “Well, I see you’re home. How would you like to go out tonight?”
Lois hesitated a few moments, but then answered, “Okay!”
At the conclusion of our date that night,