Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [12]
Neil and I went through each step, activating the computer program, assessing lunar gravity alignment, star-sighting to get our bearings for rendezvous with Mike, if necessary. We did everything but push the button to lift off.
Finally, we could relax.
Almost.
The guys back in Houston were concerned about a pressure buildup in one of the descent fuel tanks that should have been venting and wasn’t, creating the potential for an explosion. After traveling a quarter million miles and landing with just seconds to spare, we now ran the risk of being annihilated. While the world was ecstatically celebrating our accomplishment, the guys at Mission Control discreetly “suggested” that we throw a switch to vent the tank.
I looked out the window. I had just experienced the most intense, exciting ride in my life. And the real adventure was just beginning. Outside that window, the lunar surface awaited mankind’s first footprints.
2
MAGNIFICENT
DESOLATION
LANDING ON THE MOON IS NOT QUITE THE SAME THING AS arriving at Grandmother’s for Thanksgiving. You don’t hop out of the lunar module the moment the engine stops and yell, “We’re here! We’re here!” Getting out of the LM takes a lot of preparation, so we had built in several extra hours to our flight plan. We also figured it was wise to allow more time rather than less for our initial activities after landing, just in case anything had gone wrong during the flight.
According to our schedule, we were supposed to eat a meal, rest awhile, and then sleep for seven hours after arriving on the moon. After all, we had already worked a long, full day and we wanted to be fresh for our extra-vehicular activity (EVA). Mission Control had notified the media that they could take a break and catch their breath since there wouldn’t be much happening for several hours as we rested. But it was hard to rest with all that adrenaline pumping through our systems.
Nevertheless, in an effort to remain calm and collected, I decided that this would be an excellent time for a ceremony I had planned as an expression of gratitude and hope. Weeks before, as the Apollo mission drew near, I had originally asked Dean Woodruff, pastor at Webster Presbyterian Church, where my family and I attended services when I was home in Houston, to help me to come up with something I could do on the moon, some appropriate symbolic act regarding the universality of seeking. I had thought in terms of doing something overtly patriotic, but everything we came up with sounded trite and jingoistic. I settled on a well-known expression of spirituality: celebrating the first Christian Communion on the moon, much as Christopher Columbus and other explorers had done when they first landed in their “new world.”
I wanted to do something positive for the world, so the spiritual aspect appealed greatly to me, but NASA was still smarting from a lawsuit filed by atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair after the Apollo 8 astronauts read from the biblical creation account in Genesis. O’Hair contended this was a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. Although O’Hair’s views did not represent mainstream America at that time, her lawsuit was a nuisance and a distraction that NASA preferred to live without.
I met with Deke Slayton, one of the original “Mercury Seven” astronauts who ran our flight-crew operations, to inform him of my plans and that I intended to tell the world what I was doing. Deke said, “No, that’s not a good idea, Buzz. Go ahead and have communion, but keep your comments more general.” I understood