Moondust (27 page)

“I went to an astronaut reunion here in Houston last week, and some of 'em would try to one-up you when they hadn't seen you in three years. You know? That's the way they are. They want to … they want to … give you a hassle. It's just them. It's just the way it is. And I feel bad for them, kinda. But they like it. On their deathbed, they're going to feel that that's the way the game is played. Everybody on their deathbed thinks they did the best they could. Adolf Hitler thought that he did the best he could. I've read that he said the German people let him down, they didn't have the intensity and devotion that was required. And that allowed him to flood the subways when they were in there, to stop the Russians, and feel justified in doing it. But in my philosophy, which I've read a lot of, though I never took it, everybody feels they did the best they could under the circumstances. And so we have to be careful.”

Bean doesn't sound angry as he says this. He sounds like a man engaged in a conversation while trying to dig a thorn out of his foot.

Then he returns to Wernher von Braun, extolling his ability to talk to anyone on their own level, in a way that they could connect with, without being condescending or patronizing.

“I'd never seen anybody do it like that. And he did it effortlessly. He had this ability.”

Which is rare in a person with great theoretical facility …

“That's because they always want to move on. I always felt that in meetings we'd be talking about stuff and he already knew the answer, but didn't want to interrupt because he wanted to build a team. And as a result he had to sit in meetings that were boring even for me, not because I knew the answer, but because it took so long to get to the solution. And I think he often knew the solution before we started, but would patiently sit through the discussions because of the need to be there and provide
leadership, so that in the long term, when he wasn't there, they could still go out and do the things that needed to be done. Let's assume that I had the IQ he did, which I don't; I don't think I could have been that patient.”

Yet military historians have claimed that, had Hitler's regime clung on for another six months, the godfather of Apollo and his V-2 rockets might have won him the war. I'm about to throw this spanner in the works when Bean does it for me.

“Yes. And if you read his history, then you're also left with the problem that he did a lot of bad things – but if he wanted to be in that society, and a leader, then he had to use slave labour, he had to accept that people were getting killed and starved and strangled with their belt because they took some leather to hold their pants up and they weren't supposed to.”

People say he didn't know.

“Of course he did. He was a genius. We knew, so I'm sure that he did. Now, here's the question for philosophy: What does this all mean to a guy like von Braun? He must know the workers are not humanely treated. He can't believe, I don't think, that they're subhuman. Hitler thinks that, but I imagine von Braun thinking, ‘They're unfortunate humans, just like me.' I don't know that. But if it is the case, what does he do? He's not going to stop it. What does it all mean? Thank God we're not in that position, you and me, 'cos we could have been born in it, and we might not know what to do any more than von Braun did.”

Which is something no one can deny until they've been in that position, but still …

“So how does it all fit together? Say I was at Exxon, I would probably leave. I would try to tell the president what I thought and if he wasn't interested, I think I personally wouldn't stay. I wouldn't blow the whistle and do all that other stuff, 'cos I wouldn't want to spend my one life on Earth doing that – even though I might wish somebody would. I'll tell my friends why and then I'll go. That would be my approach. It's probably not a good approach, because then it keeps going.”

Afterwards, I wonder whether Bean actually meant Enron: in October 2002, there's not much to choose between the two corporations in terms of popular image. I tell him about a
dilemma I recently faced, in being forced to choose between one organization whose macro politics I dislike, but who treat actual people well, and another whose professed outlook I'm more comfortable with, but who treat their own people with contempt. He laughs delightedly.

“Well, there you go! You see, it's the real world you're living in. It's the dance that you're learning to do as you go through it! Yeah. That's interesting. It's good. I just think we should all be moving toward positions where we can shine our light on things that are important to us. That's what I feel like here. I don't have a boss. I spoke to astronauts the other night and told 'em exactly how I felt about things – which is very positive, mostly – but I didn't have to worry about how my boss would take it or any of that. I like that and that's one of the reasons why I'm here. If my life gets screwed up sometimes, I know that I've screwed it up and I can undo it. Nobody is forcing me to screw up.”

And as he speaks, the fact that Bean survived the Astronaut Corps and even learned to thrive in it strikes me as the most remarkable thing, a real cause for celebration. Then he's talking about the Lhasa Apsos, which are said to have been traditional companions to the Dalai Lama and are good watchdogs, because they have keen ears and are terrified of everything, and he's saying:

“The thing I like about 'em is that their hair is not like dog hair. It reminds me of the hair on my children when they were little. And when they were little – do you have children? – you rub their heads and you're kissing them and petting them and that's something you can't do when they grow up. You know I can't go patting my daughter's head – I'd like to, she's thirty now, but I can't do it. So I like that with the dogs, because it brings back good memories.

“They smell good to me, too. They smell like a dog to everybody else, and they did to me at first. I think that's what love is all about. They're also good role models for growing old. We've had three grow old and die and they never complained about it. One had cancer and had to have one of her legs removed, but she came home and couldn't do much for a while, but never complained and did the best she could. Another one went senile,
couldn't see much, remembered nothing and would bump into all the furniture, and I'd say to myself, ‘You got to get up courage to take her down to the vet and get her put to sleep.' But I realized that she was happy doing that, that I was the one who had the problem – the dog didn't. So I've learned a lot from these dogs about growing old. I mean, I'm seventy.”

We talk for a while longer about his father and sister, and my father and brothers, and he asks about the pets I kept as a kid, and we discuss Vermeer and Wittgenstein and Britney Spears and Bianca Jagger and his daughter and the first marriage that ran out of steam soon after he returned from the Moon, and his second wife, who was supportive of his change of career (having little option
but
to be, I suspect), and what books I'm reading and what books he's reading, and space suits and Houston, and he asks me again what he should do about the Pete painting, despite the fact that only in the spheres of navigation or timekeeping should any opinion of mine be taken less seriously than my opinion in regard to form and colour, and eventually I notice that it's late. Hours have passed, and Bean doesn't look like a man to be kept from his dinner for so long. I apologize for detaining him and start to gather up my belongings, being careful not to tread on any dogs. He says: “Don't apologize. You didn't keep me. I kept myself.” I ask if he's thought about the day when all the Moonwalkers will be gone?

“Oh, for sure. And it won't be very long. There's only nine of us left. And I knew that when I left NASA. I loved being an astronaut, but I said, you know, there are young men and women who can fly just as good as I can, or better, but there's nobody who went to the Moon who can tell the stories about Pete and the others that I can, that's interested in learning to do this sort of thing. When I think about my life, I'm always thinking, ‘I hope I live long enough to do all the stories I know.' And I know I'm not gonna, 'cos I got a list over there and it keeps getting a little bit longer.”

As if guided by someone or something else, our attention turns to
That's How It Felt to Walk on the Moon
. It's a question which twelve men struggled to answer for varying portions of three decades, which Bean tried to answer with his brush.

“It was an image NASA took of me. And I wanted it to have more emotion about it, so I didn't paint it like those others. And I painted it gold – 'cos I felt like I had a glow up there, you know, really excited … I didn't know how I felt! But you had the best day of your life. But I looked at it and I said, ‘I didn't really feel the way that looks.' So I said, ‘Maybe it's more like a rainbow,' and then it began to feel more like I felt. And those colours go well together, which is why it looks so good. And I wanted to keep it. I can't remember what that sold for at the show, but I said to myself, ‘I can't afford a painting that expensive.' And later on when I could, I tried to buy it back, but I couldn't.”

They were asking more than you sold it for?

“No, they wouldn't sell it!”

He explains that he's borrowing it right now because he wants the painting of Conrad to be a companion piece to it. I tell him that I'd have trouble parting with something that I'd put so much of myself into.

“You do,” he smiles, “but you're either in business or you're not.”

On the way out, Bean invites me to a talk he's giving for an education charity at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences. He also lets me try on his space gloves, which are unexpectedly stiff and clumsy and as I'm tugging them off, I suddenly hear Naughty Jack's voice in my ear, delivering the best speech from
Terms of Endearment
to Shirley MacLaine, who has just agreed to go on a date. He's oozing:

“Now, Aurora, since you've agreed, why don't we just forget about the rest of it. I mean, I know how you feel, you know. There were countdowns when I had my doubts. But I said to myself, ‘You agreed to do it. You're strapped in. You're in the hands of something bigger and more powerful than yourself … so why don't you just lay back and
enjoy the ride
…'”

And I have to ask: Can this really have been based on Alan Bean, even in the wilder days of his youth?

“Oh, nooo,” he assures me; “they just came round to get the feel of what an astronaut is really like.”

So we'll take that as a “yes,” especially once we know that Ron Howard and Bill Paxton also came over when they were
making
Apollo 13,
and that at the film's Hollywood premiere a stream of people came and told Bean how puzzled they'd been to find that Paxton's portrayal of the
Apollo 13
Lunar Module pilot, Fred Haise, reminded them so much of
him
. I watch it again and they're absolutely right.

The museum district comes on like a pleasant afterthought to the city, manicured green and – with no reason for anyone to go there other than culture –
quiet.
It's nice, though, and the gathering at the Museum of Natural Sciences is an intimate thing, with cocktails preceding a “VIP dinner” attended by educators and Houston philanthropists, the theme being “Make Space for the World's Kids.” I arrive late and sit at the back, watching chicken bones being cleared away until, lo and behold, those familiar ascending chords come spearing from the PA system.
Also Sprach Zarathustra
.

Bean steps to the front of the circular room in brown trousers and a pale blue, long-sleeved cotton shirt with a NASA logo on the pocket, and a big smile on his face. “Hello, Earthlings,” he says into the microphone, which erupts into feedback. He steps back and someone fiddles with a knob. A slide show begins and Bean's words start to tumble out as the images flash by. There's one of the computer room at Mission Control, which contains all the computing power of several modern mobile phones (the onboard LM computer had a memory of 36k), and another of a strange harness designed to simulate the one-sixth gravity found on the Moon, which appears to be suspending Bean by his testicles. “We realized that not only did we not know how to git to the Moon, we didn't know how to train to git to the Moon,” the former astronaut deadpans. “You'll see that I'm not smiling here.” The audience dissolves into laughter. There's a picture of a reluctant Bean being taught geology and another one with his crewmates Conrad and Dick Gordon, where he points out that he went all the way to the surface precisely because he was the least experienced of the three; because Gordon had been into space before and could be trusted to tend the Command Module alone; and I realize that I've never heard or
seen any of the other LM pilots acknowledge this. It wasn't a “single-shot thing,” he says as a slide of Aldrin on the Moon appears. They hadn't assumed that the first attempt would be successful, had half expected that it might take two or three to get it right.

“We were stunned, we were amazed when that happened,” he admits. “We came back and thought, ‘This is amazing that we did this' – the same feeling that all the people on the planet had at that time.”

Bean tells us that he called Neil Armstrong on the phone when he started to paint the
Apollo 11
commander planting the first flag, and that Armstrong had declared this to be the scariest part of the mission, because lunar soil is like dust mixed with coral – sharp and hard because there's no weather to erode and smooth it – and he couldn't force the flagpole more than a couple of inches in. He became convinced that when he let go of the staff, it would fall and everybody around the world would see the American flag collapsing suggestively into the dirt. So he leaned it back and tried to balance it. He put a little soil around the base and the thing stood up,
just,
but he and Buzz made a point of steering clear of it thereafter. And I'm thinking: these people find fear in the strangest of places. This is followed by a photo taken through the LM's window on the way down, and the observation that the Lunar Module pilot, which is what he was, should really have been called the Lunar Module engineer, because the commander, in this case Pete Conrad, was responsible for flying the ungainly contraption.