Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight (50 page)

The orbiting outpost was to be as large as two football fields set side by side. But on February 1, 2003, construction stopped. The space shuttle
Columbia
and its crew of seven were lost, again to an aura of what might best be called arrogant complacency.

The flight by the oldest member of the shuttle fleet had nothing to do with the space station. It was in its own orbit for 16 days where it could have only been seen by national security assets. Had it docked with the space station, or had those in charge of its flight decided to look, the hole in its right wing surely would have been detected. The hole got there during its launch when insulation cascaded from the
Columbia
’s external fuel tank and ripped the hole in its right wing.

While in orbit, an overconfident NASA failed to inspect the ship following questions raised from viewing launch video. When the oldest shuttle and its seven returned to Earth, reentry heat devoured the space plane and breached a wing.
Columbia
and its astronauts disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana while penetrating Earth’s atmosphere.

Neil was again devastated.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board recommended the space shuttle fleet be grounded following completion of the International Space Station. Neil and a disheartened space family watched the space shuttles become museum pieces.

NASA was virtually dismantled because of a lack of interest and indecisive leadership. Neil joined the last man on the moon Gene Cernan and
Apollo 13
Commander Jim Lovell in writing an op-ed on the drifting space agency. The three Apollo astronauts saw fit to give their op-ed to me; Brian Williams broke the editorial on his number one news program,
NBC Nightly News
.

Neil, Jim Lovell, and Gene Cernan traveled the planet preaching what we must do if Earth and its miracle of life are to survive.

*   *   *

During this period, as Buzz Aldrin neared his eightieth birthday, Neil’s partner on the moon was approached by a six-foot-something, obnoxious conspiracy theorist. This clown didn’t believe Aldrin had walked on the moon. The jerk got right into Buzz’s face with a microphone and camera. He shouted, “You are the one who said you walked on the moon and you didn’t. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.”

“Will you get away from me?” Buzz asked not so politely.

“You are a coward, a liar, and a thief,” the harasser shouted.

Having to reach up, Buzz threw a swift punch startling and sending the guy backward. The idiot called to his cameraman, “Did you get that? Did you see what he did? Did you get that?”

Those watching laughed as the conspiracy theorist ran, clearly identifying who the coward really was.

Soon Buzz’s astronaut buddies like Wally Schirra began calling Aldrin “Rocky.” When that same idiot approached Neil asking him to swear on a Bible he was holding that he walked on the moon, Neil smiled pleasantly. “I would, but I’m sure like you your Bible is a fake.”

A couple of working scientists on Discovery Television’s
MythBusters
took the conspiracy theorist’s so-called evidence, and with scientific tests debunked the theorists’ claims.

In July 2009, NASA’s first lunar scout for the twenty-first century, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, took images of the Eagle’s lunar module descent stage where Neil and Buzz left it on the Sea of Tranquility.

Apollo 14
’s landing area showed the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter a faint trail of Alan Shepard’s and Edgar Mitchell’s two-mile round-trip walk to Cone Crater. You can see clearly where they pulled their “rickshaw” tool and collection carrier.
Apollo 17
’s picture is so detailed experts can tell which way the wheels were pointing on Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt’s lunar rover.

Apollo 11
: Eagle and experiments still sit where Neil and Buzz left them. (NASA)

Following these pictures 40 years later, the conspiracy theorists were left with one claim: The United States Congress and President Barack Obama approved $200 billion for NASA to build and fly the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to fake these pictures.

Apollo 12
’s lunar module descent stage along with Conrad’s and Bean’s footprints are still there. (NASA)

Apollo 14
: Rickshaw tracks, lander, and experiments left by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell are clearly seen. (NASA)

Apollo 15
: First lunar rover tracks are clear as is the lunar rover where Dave Scott and Jim Irwin left it. (NASA)

This reporter covered every mission flown by American astronauts for NBC News. We broke the cause of the
Apollo 1
launchpad fire that killed three as well as the cause of the
Challenger
accident that killed seven. If NASA had convinced 400,000 Apollo workers to lie and if the agency had slipped their fraud by the Russians, the British, and the Chinese who were tracking America’s nine trips to the moon, I promise you the agency would have never gotten a lie by me nine times. Why wouldn’t NASA stop after succeeding once? Why would they risk getting caught lying another eight times?

More important: Did NASA lie about the
Apollo 1
launchpad fire? Did the United States of America kill three of its astronauts just so it could create a falsehood about placing astronauts on the moon? Only an idiot could believe that.

Apollo 16
: Lunar rover is parked where it was left by John Young and Charlie Duke, to the right of the lunar lander. (NASA)

*   *   *

Sad but true: Neil Armstrong spent his last days disappointed that America’s space program had been abandoned.

He contributed wholeheartedly to five stories we wrote for NBCNews.com entitled “Space in the 20Teens.” The last of the features ran only a month before Neil left us. He died August 25, 2012, following complications from heart bypass surgery.

Apollo 17
: We see it all. The parked moon buggy, the experiments, the lander, and the tracks left by Harrison Schmitt and the mission’s commander Gene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk the lunar landscape. (NASA)

No greater man walked among us. No better man left us informed answers. Neil taught us how to take care of our Earth-Moon system.

His thoughts are next.

The Hubble Space Telescope in orbit, cataloging the universe. (NASA)

TWENTY-FIVE

THEN, NOW, AND TOMORROW

First, there was nothing.

Then, 13.82 billion years ago the universe simply burst into existence, a “singularity”—a huge release of energy that would be called the Big Bang. It happened in total darkness because light didn’t yet exist—even stranger, neither did space.

Today, the Big Bang is accepted. Most astronomers and scientists believe it was just a very tiny ultra-hot particle of energy before exploding in the greatest of all explosions; it expanded, inflated into existence, getting bigger and cooler with each passing moment. It created matter in the form of countless trillions of subatomic particles—the first stuff there ever was. Then it cooled! The fog cleared around 400,000 years following the Big Bang and the universe became visible. It was no longer a cloud of gas. Galaxies and quasars began forming in single points of light—uncountable billions of them spreading a vast web in every direction.