Falling to Earth Read online

  Copyright © 2011 by Alfred Worden and Francis French

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published by Smithsonian Books

  www.smithsonianbooks.com

  Editor: Lise Sajewski

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Worden, Al, 1932–

  Falling to Earth : an Apollo 15 astronaut’s journey / Al Worden with Francis French. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-58834-310-9

  1. Worden, Al, 1932–2. Astronauts—United States—Biography. 3. Space flight to the moon—History. 4. Project Apollo (U.S.)—History. I. French, Francis. II. Title.

  TL789.85.W67A3 2011

  629.450092—dc22

  [B]

  2011003440

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword by Dick Gordon

  Preface

  1 Farmer

  2 Soldier

  3 Aviator

  4 Astronaut

  5 The Fire

  6 Unveiling the Moon

  7 Training and Temptation

  8 Launch

  9 Earthrise

  10 Falling to Earth

  11 Celebration

  12 Ruin

  13 Redemption

  14 A New Tranquility

  Epilogue by Tom Stafford

  Acknowledgments

  FOREWORD

  More than anyone I know, Al Worden lives in the moment—in the here and now. It is hard for me to imagine him stopping to reflect long enough to write a book. But I also know that he has been holding in this story for quite a long time.

  In this book, Al shares experiences that very few humans have ever had: flying alone on the back side of the moon cut off from all human contact, completely isolated, one of only twenty-four people to have made this journey. I was fortunate to have had that experience as well, and to have been a participant in a significant portion of Al’s life.

  My time with NASA began with my selection in the third group of astronauts in 1963, a gratifying accomplishment after the bitter disappointment of not being selected in the second group. Al appeared on the scene in the fifth selection in 1966. Although his group may not have realized it at the time, they would play a major role in virtually all American spaceflights from early Apollo missions up to and including early space shuttle flights.

  Al’s assignment to the support crew for Apollo 9 as a command module specialist and mine as part of the backup crew brought us together, and we continued to train together for the rest of my career at NASA.

  During our assignment on Apollo 9, Al and I would spend many hours flying together in a T-38 jet between Houston and Downey, California. When arriving at Los Angeles airport, the two of us would check out our rental cars. We worked different schedules at Downey and needed separate cars. As soon as we left, the race was on—competition was the elixir of our lives. We would generally take different routes to the Tahitian Village motel in Downey. It was always nice to be the one at the check-in desk when the other drove up to the entrance. Of course, we never exceeded the speed limit on the way.

  Another event that brought Al and me together was a baseball game. Morale was still low in Downey as a result of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 that killed three of our astronaut colleagues. Apollo 9 commander Jim McDivitt was searching for some way to improve relationships. A game between the crew and Downey workers was suggested. Game on! The Downey workers, with their semipro players, prevailed, and a great time was had by all. Morale and the relationship between astronauts and workers improved.

  The training period for Apollo 9 was long. With the redesign of the Apollo command module well under way, the crew participated in a tremendous amount of testing. There were many long hours, and a lot of time away spent from home. Al and I worked closely during this period with Dave Scott, the prime command module pilot, to develop specific crew procedures and checklists. Al’s contributions were invaluable, relieving Dave and me to participate in mission-specific training and simulations. Apollo 9 finally flew in March 1969 and was a great success.

  On April 10, 1969 NASA announced the crews of Apollo 12. I was named on the prime crew, along with Pete Conrad and Alan Bean. To my delight, Al Worden was named as my backup. Al was a tremendous help to me during training. Many procedures for working around the moon still had to be developed. We worked together in simulations to develop procedures and checklists for operations in lunar orbit such as mapping, engine burns, and rendezvous. I felt that part of my responsibility was to ensure that Al could fly on Apollo 12 in my place. However, we both knew that this was not going to happen. I was going to fly my mission!

  I flew to the moon on Apollo 12 in November of 1969. At the conclusion of our postflight celebratory world tour, in the spring of 1970, the Apollo 15 crews were announced, and I was named as backup commander. This assignment gave me my own crew and, I hoped, a later flight back to the moon. But more importantly for me was a chance to work with Al for a third time. This assignment, however, meant that Al and I would not be working as closely as we had in the past, since I was the backup for his commander, Dave Scott. Al had supported me up to and during my amazing adventure to the moon. Now he had his own mission, and busied himself to be well prepared for his extraordinary journey.

  As much as Al and I worked together, Dave Scott and I had also developed a close relationship. We had been selected in the same astronaut group and had shared many assignments. I backed him up on Gemini 8 and Apollo 9, then he became the backup commander for Apollo 12, and I in turn became his backup commander for Apollo 15. Assignments together on a total of four crews is probably a record. I wonder how either one of us stood the experience—that’s more than enough togetherness.

  I know that Al was very happy when he was assigned to Dave’s crew. Dave’s reputation had been one of the best, and I am sure their backgrounds as West Point graduates—duty, honor, country—provided a strong bond for them.

  Apollo 15 became known as perhaps the best of the Apollo program. For Al, in lunar orbit, it included a new bay in the service module housing scientific instruments used to study the lunar surface. He was responsible for operating the experiments for three days around the moon by himself and then performing an EVA, also known as a spacewalk, to retrieve the scientific data cassettes. The EVA took place in deep space, some two hundred thousand miles from Earth. Al completed it in just under forty minutes, a tribute to his training.

  After my time as Apollo 15 backup commander, I had no more crew assignments for the first time since 1965, a stretch of more than six years. After working on plans for the space shuttle until January 1972, I retired from NASA and the navy. Soon afterward, I learned that the Apollo 15 crew was in some kind of trouble regarding postal covers. It was an enormous shock to me when three close friends were pulled into a national scandal that sent shockwaves through our tight-knit astronaut fraternity.

  I was disturbed by the revelations and concerned about the impact it would have on them. I generally refrain from discussing the event, even today. However, in searching my memory of my work on Apollo 15, I know that I was totally unaware of any unapproved postal covers flown on Apollo 15. I am learning details, from Al’s perspective, of this event for the first time.

  The episode had a deleterious effect on Dave’s and Al’s future careers with NASA. It may have diminished their character for a short period of time, but it can never detract from the outstanding work they accomplished on Apollo 15.

  I now realize that Al has been ho
lding back the full details of what happened to him almost four decades ago. It has been suggested that the West Point honor code, still part of his character, has encouraged him to finally write this frank and honest account of all the events of Apollo 15. Now his story is out, and I hope he’ll find a peace he has not known for a long time.

  After serving some time in private industry, Al has returned to the activity he loves—giving to others through his endeavors. As chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation he is responsible for the distribution of numerous scholarships to deserving college students around the country, helping America remain a world leader in many fields of science and technology. I’m sure that one of those students will lead something just as important as the Apollo program one day, and that achievement will be thanks to Al’s tireless efforts.

  With this book you will experience one of humankind’s greatest adventures. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

  Capt. Dick Gordon, USN (Ret.)

  Pilot, Gemini 11

  Command Module Pilot, Apollo 12

  Backup Commander, Apollo 15

  PREFACE

  It was the worst day of my life.

  I’d had low points before. A failed marriage. Friends dead in car wrecks, aircraft, and spacecraft. This day was almost worse than death. Everything I had worked toward over a lifetime of service was ruined, and I was all alone.

  Just a few months before, heads of state had honored me. Congress asked me to address them. I was called a hero. Now I was clearing out my rented apartment, loading boxes into a trailer, and preparing to leave Houston forever. I’d been fired in disgrace and frozen out by my colleagues. I had just lost everything: my career, and the respect and trust of those for whom I would have given my life.

  I was angry with myself. I had been involved in something wrong and I knew it. But I was also mad at the world. I had ended up at this low point simply because I had nodded my head at a social evening and agreed to go along with a plan that I had no part in creating. All I had done, I fumed to myself, was trust my colleagues. I had been far too naïve, and now I was an outcast.

  That day in the summer of 1972 was the beginning of a long journey for me. As I clawed my way back to self-respect and the understanding of my peers, a sense of duty kept me from telling my painful story of disgrace and redemption. Recently, however, my feelings have changed. If I don’t tell this story myself, completely and with raw honesty, then all anyone will know about me will be an incomplete story told only by others. What really happened to me and why? It’s time for me to explain.

  I’m nearing eighty and, like most aviators, I think I’ll live forever. Yet I am told I won’t. It is time for me to set the record straight. Along the way, I’ll share some adventure stories with you. Flying to the moon is one of the most incredible things that could happen to anyone. I am lucky it happened to me.

  CHAPTER 1

  FARMER

  Only twenty-four humans have left Earth orbit and journeyed to the moon. I’m one of them. It’s an exclusive club, so small that I am still surprised they let me in. After all, hundreds of people have traveled into space. Yet most spacefarers have never strayed beyond low Earth orbit. Our little group traveled a great deal farther—more than a thousand times farther.

  The size of our group hasn’t grown because no one has returned to the moon. In fact, our number has dwindled to eighteen as my friends and colleagues pass away. I sometimes think we will all be gone by the time humans return there.

  We went to the moon in an exceedingly brief span of four hurried years, four decades ago. As time passes, I realize more than ever just how special our experience was. Yet we were not particularly extraordinary people. We just happened to have the right flying and engineering skills when NASA needed to get to the moon. In short, we were lucky.

  Even if I had known that there would one day be astronauts, and that I might wish to become one, when I was growing up there was no way of learning how. In fact, when I was born, there were no such people as astronauts, nor rockets able to reach into space. I grew up in a place that was about as far away from that high-tech world as it is possible to imagine: a rural childhood in 1930s Michigan.

  My earliest memories are of our tiny farmhouse just outside of the city of Jackson. My older sister, Sally, arrived first in 1931. I was the first son, born within a year. Carolyn, my little sister, came along less than two years after me. For about seven years it was just us three. I think my parents, Merrill and Helen, thought they were done. Then, to our surprise, they produced three kid brothers for us, Jim, Jerry, and Peter, and our big, cozy family was complete.

  I was born into a farming family. My mother’s parents, Fred and Frances Crowell, lived on their own farm outside of the small town of East Jordan, hundreds of miles closer to the northern tip of the state. I spent so much time there as well as on our own farm that both of them felt like home to me. The weather at my grandparents’ farm was much colder and more extreme than at our farm in Jackson, and yet we would journey there every time I was out of school. I remember, when I was very young, my parents drove our Chevrolet sedan north to try to reach the farm in the middle of winter. What a mistake. With no heat in the car, we kids were bundled up in the back seat under a thick pile of blankets. We made it as far as two miles out of East Jordan before the snowdrifts became too high. We had to retreat to town and stay with an aunt until the snowplows could clear the roads.

  I learned a lot of family stories when we stayed with my grandparents. Economic times had forced my folks to live on that farm for a couple of seasons. They had married in the late 1920s right as the Great Depression hit. When I was born, money and jobs were scarce in Jackson so my parents moved to East Jordan. I doubt my mother minded the move. She had grown up on her parents’ farm and loved it. She was very much like her mother, and I recall them working side by side every day in the fruit and vegetable gardens. White-haired, heavyset, tough as nails, Grandma Frances was dark skinned from working in the sun all day. She told everyone what to do; she ruled the roost.

  But as hard as my mother and grandmother worked, neither of them kept up with my Grandpa Fred, who loved his farm like nothing else in life. Born in Canada, in his youth he worked as a lumberjack, one of the toughest, most physically demanding jobs there is. He might have stayed a lumberjack if a huge tree hadn’t fallen the wrong way and crushed his ankle. Although the injury eventually healed, it ended that career.

  My grandfather was still in his teens, so he walked over the Canadian border to the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula to stake out and homestead 160 acres of land. He never took out citizenship papers and never dared to revisit Canada, worried he might not be allowed back to the States. But people vouched for him, so he obtained a Social Security number, a driver’s license, and everything else he needed, without ever getting caught. He even married the daughter of a German-American family from a farm just down the road. Nevertheless, Grandpa Fred was an illegal immigrant.

  Grandpa looked exactly how I imagined Santa Claus would, except without a beard. White-haired with blue eyes and rosy cheeks, he dressed in overalls and smoked a pipe. He had a particular farm smell about him, even when he’d cleaned up after a hard day’s work. Warm hay, a dusting of manure, and the heavy odor of fresh milk were all bound together with fragrant pipe smoke. I loved that smell, because I loved him.

  He spent his life clearing his farmland. It was not very fertile; tens of thousands of years earlier, glaciers had scraped away the rich topsoil, leaving weak rubble-filled dirt in their wake. But Grandpa was persistent; it was him versus the rocks in his fields. I would help him with his team of horses as they pulled a low, flat trailer with skids called a stone boat. With it, he methodically picked up rocks and stones, slowly improving the land.

  My Grandpa Fred, a lifelong farmer

  A gentle soul, Fred greeted the world with a jolly smile. People can sense a nice person; so can cows. He had all of his dairy herd named, and when he
called Bessie, Hazel, and Mabel, they would eagerly come to him. He always had a little treat in his pocket for them, and for his horses, too. Even the feral cats loved him. Wild and wary, they were only tolerated because they caught rats. But when Grandpa milked a cow, the cats would approach him mewling, and he’d squirt milk right from the teat into their mouths.

  Grandpa was part of a community of poor but supportive farmers. At harvesttime, if another farmer was shorthanded when the time came to thresh wheat and oats or to raise a new barn, he could count on Grandpa. I wanted to be just like my grandfather when I grew up. He had no money to speak of, but acted as though he was a rich man. And he was. Rich in contentment, he was happy with who he was and what he did. I especially admired his independence. He was very social and loved by everyone, but he didn’t need anyone else to be happy. He just—was.

  I loved being with Grandpa. My own father had a more difficult time on the farm. Living on that farm was his idea of hell. I later learned how depressed he’d been by the forced move. He hated farm work, and it showed. My grandparents noticed, and grew increasingly unimpressed with his rejection of their farming life. I was sad to hear stories of my father so out of his element and unhappy. Circumstances had parachuted him into my mother’s family without any support. They had grown up with one set of rules in life. His were entirely different.

  My father looked typically Dutch—pale, with white-blond hair in a brush cut. He was six feet tall and chubby all his life. The whole town of Jackson knew him, and what did they call him? Tiny. It was a loving tease. He was unremarkable, the kind of man who could blend into a crowd: pleasant to everybody and comfortable to be around. This softhearted, jovial guy always had a twinkle in his large blue eyes.

  Orphaned at the age of four when his parents died in a car accident, my dad was raised by his gruff Uncle Dick on a pig and apple farm in northern Michigan. He’d had enough of farm life by the time I was born. Growing up, I saw him as a gentleman farmer, the type who owns a farm but never works on it. Dad was more technically oriented; his life revolved around electronics. He owned a small repair shop in Jackson and was good at fixing radios. In fact, my dad built the town’s first radio station, and worked for a while as the late-night talk host. He was curious to see how far he could boost the radio signal from the station, and had his answer one day when he received a postcard from a listener—in Australia.