Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight (46 page)

The one thing that would later disturb Neil about the lunar materials he and Buzz had so meticulously collected was that some moon rocks had been given to many heads of state for diplomatic reasons. In some cases leaders leaving office kept them or sold them to the highest bidder.

In this was a lesson. Neil needed a shield against the money grubbers who would be coming after him, enticing him to trade his celebrity for enrichment. That was not for Neil.

Even though he never had a fat bank account Neil never felt his family was deprived. He never felt they were poor. He was simply a person of science, a gatherer of knowledge. He left the glad-handing, the rubbing elbows, and the get-rich schemes to others.

His time in quarantine not only gave the doctors full access to
Apollo 11
’s astronauts, it gave Neil time to write letters, make notes, and think about his future.

He quickly realized he could only go to the moon once. There could never be another project or adventure that could top that achievement. The downside was it had come when his life was only half completed. What was he to do for the next forty years? Family and learning would play the biggest part. Teaching would play another. He had much to think about.

Neil’s thoughts were interrupted by Deke coming in and sitting before the glass. The boss turned on their two-way communications and asked a question lingering in the
Apollo 11
astronauts’ minds. Would you like to fly again?

Neil smiled. He was aware of the John Glenn thing.

After John became the first American to orbit Earth, President Kennedy told NASA a hero of Glenn’s stature should not fly again. His life should not be put at risk. Neil, not one to put on airs, was pretty certain NASA would treat the first human to step onto the moon the same.

He saw clearly his value to the agency was to star in its dog and pony shows. He would preach the sermon—a sermon in which he believed while realizing he didn’t care a whit about the adulation. He was equally certain he would be more comfortable on the moon than before an adoring crowd.

*   *   *

Quarantine ended August 10, and three days later Neil said, “This is the last thing we’re prepared for,” as he, Mike, Buzz, and families visited three cities in one day—New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

The three-cities-in-a-day victory lap was the beginning of a monthlong worldwide tour. President Nixon got them started by having Air Force 2 fly them and their families to New York City.

By all accounts not even Lindbergh’s record-setting 1927 parade approached the size of the crowd to cheer the
Apollo 11
astronauts through a blizzard of ticker tape down New York’s Canyon of Heroes between the skyscrapers. When the final count had been taken four million had celebrated
Apollo 11
’s achievement, including this writer.

Neil had only one complaint: “Those who tossed whole stacks of computer punch cards out of windows weren’t aware some of the stacks didn’t come apart and they hit like a brick. There were dents in our cars and bumps on our heads.”

No New York City ticker-tape parade was greater than
Apollo 11
’s. (NASA)

As wild as the celebration had been in New York, the crowds were even wilder in Chicago. By the time they arrived in Los Angeles for the presidential state dinner in Beverly Hills, the astronauts were deaf from shouting, their smiles were frozen, and their fingers were crushed. None was looking forward to shaking another hand.

Even their formal wear was more comfortable than the noise of the crowds.

As promised, President Nixon and his wife Pat along with their grown daughters Julie and Tricia hosted the astronauts and their wives in their presidential suite. Joining them were former first lady Mamie Eisenhower, Esther Goddard, widow of America’s father of rocketry Robert Goddard, and many government notables including governors from 44 states.

Governor Ronald Reagan of California was very interested in their flight, and they were most pleased with all the movers and shakers, the famous and the celebrities, who were there. They had never been invited let alone honored at a presidential state dinner.

Neil was especially happy to see Jimmy Doolittle who led the first bombing raid on Tokyo—B-25s taking off from aircraft carriers for just 30 seconds over the untouchable city only weeks after Pearl Harbor. Doolittle was also the man who headed NACA when Neil had been hired by the flight science agency in 1955.

Doolittle, Lindbergh, Gagarin, Shepard, and Glenn were Neil’s heroes and there was another—Wernher von Braun, the great rocket scientist, the father of the Saturn V that had so flawlessly boosted them to the moon. He was there, and each member of the crew took special note of the presence of Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, and so many of their heroes from the movies.

Neil had hoped Charles Lindbergh would be there. The famed aviator had been invited but chose not to come out of his self-imposed seclusion, a decision Neil would soon appreciate. In years to come he was grateful he had the opportunity to meet Lindbergh on several occasions.

“I had enormous admiration for him as a pilot,” Neil said. “I’d read some of his books. I was aware of the controversial position he took on certain issues. But I was very pleased to have had the chance to meet him, and I think his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a wonderful person and quite an eloquent writer.”

Following all the congratulations and speeches at the dinner Neil was most happy to see his own family. His parents as well as his grandmother and sister and brother and their families were there. He grabbed as much time with them as possible.

The three-city tour and presidential state dinner were only the kickoff. Next they threw ticker tape and confetti at them in Houston along with the ultimate Texas barbecue in the Astrodome. Frank Sinatra was master of ceremonies.

Neil then got in gear for the coming four weeks. He hit the worldwide tour, mostly balancing the demands of fame with his own code of ethics. He did his duty as he saw it. He was conscientious and polite and participated in causes he deemed worthwhile while avoiding anything that focused on him. When it was finally over they had visited 28 cities in 25 countries, and had been received by the Queen of England.

*   *   *

“I think Neil saw the results of being an idol when he researched Lindbergh’s experience,” said his friend Jim Lovell who commanded
Apollo 13
’s near disaster. “He didn’t want his life to change. He decided to be very reclusive,” Lovell explained. “That was just Neil’s nature.”

Jim Lovell, as did many of Neil’s close friends, completely understood the boy from Smalltown, USA.

Others within NASA didn’t.

The agency brass paid Neil to run a department in Washington and gave him the fancy title of Deputy Associate NASA Administrator for Aeronautics with an office and a view of the Capitol. As Neil said, “I went back to aeronautics from whence I came.”

It was clear from the beginning Neil Armstrong wasn’t pleased with the noise and fuss. “It was the NASA administrator asking if I would help him in that area, an area I felt comfortable with and had knowledge about,” he added. “I was glad to have the experience, but I quickly came to the belief everybody should have to go to Washington and do penance.

“It was a frustrating place for me because so much coordination and greasing the skids goes on in Washington,” Neil continued, “and I asked myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’”

What NASA really wanted from Neil Armstrong was the persona of a used car salesman—a glad-hander—an agency star the agency could trot out, as needed. It was an assignment that solidified in Neil’s mind the very living definition of divine punishment.

Neil couldn’t stand it.

In 1971 he went back home and watched the moon-landing missions come to an end a year later. He was back among the farmlands of Ohio. He bought a dairy farm near the small town of Lebanon, and fulfilled his wish to teach. Neil took a post as an associate professor of aeronautics at nearby University of Cincinnati and worked hard as a teacher. He was comfortable being called professor, and for a decade he tried to do what was expected of him while avoiding becoming a public figure.

He found solitude in milking the cows, slopping the hogs, mending fences, and teaching kids what made it possible for machines to fly. Down at the Cape astronauts were eyeing the sky again. Nearly six years without a spacecraft following the July 1975 Apollo/Soyuz mission that flew the first international docking in Earth orbit, America was ready to return to space. Nothing like the machine the astronauts were about to fly had been seen before.

It was a winged spaceship the size of a jetliner and NASA was building four. They were named
Columbia
,
Challenger
,
Discovery
, and
Atlantis
, and each stood on its tail on its launchpad strapped to two towering solid-rocket boosters. A huge tank filled with more than a half-million gallons of super-cold fuels held them together. The boosters and the machine’s three main rocket engines were to launch the winged craft into orbit like Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Using wings, rudder, and landing gear they were to touchdown on a runway much like a jetliner.

Columbia
: The first space shuttle launches. (NASA)

Called the space shuttle, it came with lots of promises when the first of them,
Columbia
, was rolled out. The media horde returned, settling on the same press site from which they covered Apollo. On April 12, 1981, the first space shuttle’s countdown was under way.

On board ready to fly the new winged spaceship were a veteran astronaut and the commander of
Apollo 16
John Young, and a rookie astronaut Robert Crippen who was conspicuous driving a pickup truck made up principally of rust and worn-out parts. He was a friendly cuss—what women called handsome—a Texas roughneck most men wanted for a buddy and most women wanted for obviously something else. When the countdown neared its end, something never-before-seen happened.

Ignition began in a swift rippling fashion, a savage birth of fire as
Columbia
’s three main engines ignited, one after the other, creating a blizzard, a swirling ice storm shaken from the flanks of the shuttle’s fifteen-story-tall super-cold external fuel tank. But the winged ship didn’t move. It just sat there.

Just as the mighty Saturn V moon rockets had been held a few seconds to make sure all was running as it should,
Columbia
’s hold-down arms kept it firmly attached to its launchpad. Its three main liquid-fuel engines screamed and roared, and when the computers had sensed they were running well a rage of flame joined them from the ignition of the two giant solid boosters.
Columbia
leapt from its pad—the same launchpad from which Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, and Buzz Aldrin had left for the moon.
Columbia
was climbing from its insanity of fire shattering the quiet of Florida’s spacecoast.

Crowds were at the fences, on the causeways, standing on the beaches, and in the thickets and when two minutes had passed,
Columbia
kicked away its burnt-out boosters and sped like a homesick angel into Earth orbit. John Young and Robert Crippen, the gutsy fools, were grinning. They were in space where Crippen savored the joys of weightlessness while Young simply enjoyed being back. He needled Crip with one question, “Did you lock your pickup?”