Altered America (33 page)

             
David stared at the young man for a long moment before speaking.  “Not as yet,” he replied, then nodded his head. “Thank you all for coming here. Good day.”

* * *

              “’Not as yet,’” repeated Gordon an hour later as the three men walked through the corridors of the complex. “You
know
that they’re going to run that quote first thing tomorrow?”

             
“Yeah, I know.”

             
“Let’s see now,” continued Gordon, clasping his hands behind his back and staring wistfully up in the air. “I do believe we
still
haven’t heard a suggestion from Outer Mongolia. Isn’t that right, Alan?”

             
“I’m afraid that I must disagree with my colleague,” said Bean, clearly relishing this teasing of David. “I believe that we
just
received a telegram from their prime minister with a suggestion for David.”

             
“Oh, how nice!” replied Gordon, clapping his hands in mock glee. “That leaves, uh, leaves, uh—help me out here Alan—who does that leave?”

             
“Nobody!” shouted Bean, grinning. “Our friend here has now officially received a suggestion from
every
country on Earth!”

             
“Gosh,” said Gordon, “with so many suggestions he should have no problems whatsoever picking a few words, right?”

             
“You would think so, Alan but, alas, our friend here needs a wee bit more time.”

             
“We don’t lift-off for two more days,” David said, somewhat defensively. “I still have plenty of time.”

             
“Yeah. Plenty of time,” said Bean.

             
“And I’m sure they will be great,” said Gordon.

             
David nodded his head. “Yeah. They’ll be great.” He nodded his head once more. “Perfect,” he said, in a quiet voice no one else could hear.

(8)

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
—
John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

July 21, 1969 –Cocoa Beach, Florida

Ju
st after 4pm EST

             
By pure dumb luck, David’s house was located within easy travelling distance of three other Apollo astronaut’s homes. As a result, it had been decreed (alas, with minimal input from David) that David’s home shall be the ‘official’ gathering spot to watch the Moon landing, with the first ‘guest’–James Lovell, who had been backup for Apollo 11 commander—showing up at noon at David’s doorstep.

             
By the time three p.m. had rolled around, it was standing room only in the living room, several of the astronauts had rigged up a second TV in the backyard, a couch had been unceremoniously flipped over and now served as an impromptu liquor bar, and several enterprising young teenagers in the neighbourhood were making impressive amounts of money acting as ‘parking valets’ for everyone showing up at the house.

             
Indeed, there were so many astronauts in the place that someone had quipped ‘
if a bomb were to drop on this house, NASA’s next Moon mission won’t be until Nixon’s
second
term!
’ which had gotten an immense round of laughter.

             
“Okay, Okay—shut up everyone!” David yelled above the noise. “It’s almost time!”

             
As if a switch had been flipped, the entire house went quiet and the entire crowd sat silently and watched the TVs. Over an animation of a cartoon-like spaceship making its descent onto the Moon, the voices of the Apollo 11 crew could be heard.

             
“3 1/2 down, 220 feet, 13 forward.”

             
“11 forward. Coming down nicely.”

             
“Gonna be right over that crater.”

             
“200 feet, 4 1/2 down.”

             
“5 1/2 down.”

             
“
I got a good spot.”

             
“
160 feet, 6 1/2 down.”

             
“
5 1/2 down, 9 forward. You're looking good.”

             
“120 feet.”

             
“100 feet, 3 1/2 down, 9 forward. Five percent. Quantity light.”

             
David and several of the other astronauts exchanged a quick glance of concern. ‘Quantity light’ meant that the
Eagle
had low amounts of fuel left—five percent, to be precise. This event automatically started a 94-second countdown to a 'Bingo' fuel call, which meant ‘land in 20 seconds or abort.’ If the count got down to zero, Neil would have 20 seconds to land. Otherwise, he would have to abort immediately. David knew that if you're 50 feet up at ‘bingo fuel’ with all of your horizontal rates nulled and coming down to a good spot, you could certainly continue to land. With your horizontal rates nulled at 70 to 100 feet, it would be risky to land—perhaps giving you a landing
just
at the limiting load of the landing gear. At anything over 100 feet, you'd have to punch the abort button and say goodbye to the Moon.

             
The
Eagle
was at 100 feet.

             
Beneath their breaths, David and the others began to silently countdown as well.

             
“Okay. 75 feet. And it's looking good. Down a half, 6 forward.”

             
“60 seconds.”

             
“Light's on.”

             
“60 feet, down 2 1/2.  2 forward. 2 forward. That's good.”

             
“40 feet, down 2 1/2. Picking up some dust.”

             
“30 feet, 2 1/2 down.  Shadow.”

             
“4 forward. 4 forward. Drifting to the right a little. 20 feet, down a half.”

             
“30 seconds.”

             
“Drifting forward just a little bit; that's good.”

             
“Contact—”

             
And then there was what sounded like a faint scream, an explosion of static, and then—

             
Nothing.

* * *

              Silence descended on the world.

             
Walter Cronkite looked exhausted. It had been a very long day of reporting—and he wasn’t finished. Not yet anyway.

             
There was one last piece of news that he had to report.

             
Cronkite looked up at the camera.

             
“From NASA Headquarters, an official bulletin. Apollo 11 has been confirmed to have crashed on impact, some 47 minutes ago.” For a moment—just a moment—the reporter’s impassionate mask fell off and Cronkite looked like he was about to break down. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and pulled off his glasses.

             
“Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did not survive the crash.” Cronkite paused to take another deep breath.

             
“They’re gone.”

(9)

Quietly, like a night bird, floating, soaring, wingless.
We glide from shore to shore, curving and falling
but not quite touching;
Earth: a distant memory seen in an instant of repose,
crescent shaped, ethereal, beautiful,
I wonder which part is home, but I know it doesn't matter...
the bond is there in my mind and memory;
Earth: a small, bubbly balloon hanging delicately
in the nothingness of space.
—
Alfred M. Worden

September 2, 1970
—
John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida

             
“—and, as the camera stationed at the Space Center shows, a crowd estimated to be over half a million in size is awaiting lift-off of Apollo 12, scheduled to launch at precisely 10:18 a.m., some fourteen minutes from now. Those three brave souls, waiting patiently in their rocket for several hours now, awaiting lift-off, know all too well that the eyes and ears of the whole world are upon them.”

             
Walter Cronkite looked at the camera and removed his eyeglasses.

             
“We can only imagine what thoughts are going through those men’s minds right now...”

* * *

              “Hey Dave,” said Alan Bean, “Want to hear something funny?”

             
David sighed. He knew what Alan’s sense of humour was like when he was stressed, Given the present circumstances, he
really
didn’t relish hearing what kind of joke Alan had in mind at the moment. But he also knew that Alan wasn’t going to be quiet until he said it, so with great reluctance on his part, David took a deep breath and replied to Alan.

             
“Okay—lay it on me.”

             
“Well, first of all, we’re sitting up here on top of a rocket seventeen stories high.”

             
“Yeah. And?”

             
“Well, the rocket has 80,000 separate parts, and every one of them was made by the lowest bidder,” Alan said, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

             
That got groans from both David and Richard.  “Man, don’t give up your day job,” replied Gordon.

             
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I am an incredible painter!” Alan said in mock defensiveness.

             
“Yeah, pity the same can’t be said about your piloting skills,” David replied, grinning at Alan’s mock outrage.

             
“Gentlemen,” said the voice of Gerry Griffin, the lead flight director, over their radios, “Much as the guys here
love
listening to your scintillating dialogue, we do have a spaceship to fly.”

             
“Oh, Gerry, you’re such a sourpuss!” Alan answered.

             
“Yeah, you weren’t like this before the mustache!” Richard chimed in.

             
“A-hem...” came the voice of Gerry.

             
“Children,” David said, smiling. “There’s no need to make daddy angry like that. C’mon, let’s get ready.”

             
With something muffled and low that sounded like
‘dad always liked you best’
from Alan, the three men began their checklist.

* * *

              “And we have lift-off!” shouted Cronkite. “We have lift-off at eighteen minutes past the hour and the successful launch of Apollo 12!”

* * *

              “Three minutes. S-IVB,” came the voice from Mission Control.

             
David nodded his head in acknowledgement. It was just about three hours after launch. So far, everything had gone according to textbook; the launch, the entry into Earth’s orbit twelve minutes after launch, the two orbits around the Earth,
everything
.

             
Now came the really important part; the S-IVB third-stage engine was going to push the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with a Trans Lunar Injection burn. If everything went right, then precisely twenty-seven minutes later, the command/service module pair would separate from the last remaining Saturn V stage and dock with the lunar module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. If everything went right with
that
, then—and only then—would they ‘officially’ be on the way to the Moon.

             
If anything went wrong, though...

             
“Two minutes. S-IVB,” said the voice.