Falling to Earth Read online

  The other person in my group who never flew was a very talented air force test pilot named Ed Givens. When NASA picked him, he was working on a backpack that astronauts could use to maneuver during spacewalks. Ed was an interesting guy, but he was dead and gone before any of us got to know him. He died in an automobile accident near Houston a little more than a year after our group arrived. Because he was killed in a car instead of an airplane or spacecraft, he is perhaps the least remembered of the astronauts who died while in the program, which is a damn shame. He deserved better.

  Overall, our group did well to get as many flights as we did. We’d been picked in the general hope that, after the first lunar landing, the purse strings would open and we’d keep flying there for a long time. I fully expected to make a couple of flights and to command a landing on the moon.

  Once we arrived in Houston, it didn’t mean much that we had been selected as a group. We were pretty much on our own, and it was every man for himself. And some of those pilots saw this situation as a competition: a race to get selected for the best missions. Considering we were looked on as the new guys with everything to prove, that attitude was understandable.

  However, that was not my style. I figured if I did the best job I could and didn’t worry about the office politics, senior management would reward me. It isn’t part of my personality to play politics. I don’t think I could do it if I tried.

  It could be that the senior astronauts found me more acceptable because I’d been a test pilot instructor, but I also didn’t play any games to make friends. I did my best, and that effort seemed to elevate me to a position of respect, far more than any office politics ever could. The experienced astronauts accepted me quickly because they learned they could rely on me to do the job well. Competence was a qualification expected by those who might fly in space with you one day. They preferred to return alive.

  Not everybody in my group took that route. Some guys tried to play the favorites game. They identified Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton as the two bosses to impress. Both were members of the original group of seven astronauts and both were temporarily grounded by medical conditions. Deke Slayton was the director of Flight Crew Operations, and his primary job was to select astronauts and assign them to flights. Working under him was the chief of the astronaut office, Alan Shepard, the first American to fly into space. My colleagues believed that these two made all of the important crew selection decisions. However, Deke and Al both held their cards close to their chests. Those looking for clues about how to impress them and make a spaceflight had little to go on.

  I liked Deke a lot and thought he did a superb job. Even though people all around him gossiped about how to get on a flight, whom to impress, whom to flatter, Deke stayed above it all and played things straight. He’d select new groups of astronauts, put them through a training program, and then ask them to privately rate each other. Using that list, and his own observations, he’d assign people to missions. There was nothing magic about it; Deke was a straight guy—gruff, no-nonsense—but fair. He didn’t play games.

  There was one pilot in my group who thought he could influence Deke by relentlessly sucking up to him, even taking on his favorite social pastimes. Deke seemed to enjoy his friendship, and they’d go off on hunting trips together, but when it came time to assign astronauts to missions, this guy didn’t fly in Apollo. I heard he hadn’t been training hard enough. With dozens of ambitious astronauts looking to impress him, I admired Deke for his unwavering professionalism. In the end, the astronauts with talent who didn’t make a big deal out of it did better than those who tried to suck up to the boss.

  Al Shepard may have officially been named the chief of the astronaut office, but he was never there. Shepard had many outside business interests. He’d come to work in the morning for an hour or two, then he’d take off to do non-NASA business, and we wouldn’t see him again. He worked his way into being a millionaire, and it seemed to happen on government time, which was supposed to be against the rules. Yet I don’t think anyone ever dared question Al because of his stature at NASA. He was the first American in space and, as such, was immune to scolding.

  He wasn’t the only astronaut with outside interests who skated through his NASA years without a reprimand. One astronaut was on the board of a bank when a review board slammed them for incorrect banking practices. It blew up into a huge scandal in the press, especially since the whole affair involved some of the same people who had offered the original astronauts free homes. Luckily for that astronaut, his name was generally kept out of the papers—and I won’t repeat it here. It was a good lesson for all of us: sitting on a board of directors was lucrative, but we ran the risk that our names and reputations might be used for shady business practices.

  Al Shepard, however, managed to avoid public scandal. Al looked after Al. It was that simple. Officially, he managed the astronaut office. If some other astronaut had a flying mishap, he’d go take a look, and maybe admonish the pilot. Other than that, I don’t know what Al did, because he was never there and was not really a boss. Deke made all the flight assignments and really decided what happened. Years later, when we were both out of the program, I often worked with Al on charity events, and we became much friendlier. But when I began at NASA, I thought Al Shepard was a real jerk.

  Whatever the office politics, none of my group would fly in space for a while. First, we had to train. We spent most of our first year in classes, designed to teach us the basics of orbital mechanics, trajectories, rendezvous, docking, and other skills. The trouble was, our teachers were giving us only the practical user information about how the spacecraft and rocket parts worked. We were learning how to operate equipment, but there was no discussion of the theories or engineering behind them. As Jack Lousma said at the time, it was like reading the manual for a new car so you can learn how it works. You would never learn why it worked that way. It felt like we were only receiving half of the training.

  After about a week of study, Ed Mitchell, Charlie Duke, and I got together to talk. The three of us had been through the intense courses at Edwards, and I had even taught some of them. We agreed that we could teach these subjects better.

  It was a little gutsy for three brand-new guys to track down Al Shepard and tell him, “We know more than our instructors. Let us teach these courses instead.” Yet Shepard had no objections, and we were soon leading the classes. Jack Lousma jumped in, too, and taught the physics of rocket propulsion, which had been his specialty in graduate school.

  As I also got to know other astronauts from the earlier groups, I became particularly good friends with C.C. Williams. A marine corps test pilot and real top-notch guy, C.C. wasn’t a blowhard like some of the others; he just humbly did his job. I got to know him, his wife, Beth, and his daughter well, and used to borrow his truck whenever I needed to move something heavy, such as gravel, for my yard.

  Mike Collins, whom I already admired from his piloting at Edwards, became my role model and my hero. He still is. Mike was not only very smart, but also aware and astute in ways that the rest of us never quite attained. I was also a little jealous that Mike had made it into the program earlier than me. I didn’t care that the earlier spacecraft were more primitive. Pilots like Mike, chosen for the third group of astronauts, flew some amazing missions.

  I would have given anything to be one of the original seven astronauts, because they ruled the roost. The second group of astronauts selected by NASA, however, was even more experienced and impressive. By then, NASA was homing in more specifically on the kind of pilots they needed and brought in people like Frank Borman, Pete Conrad, and Tom Stafford, some of the best pilots I’d ever seen.

  Stafford was a renowned test pilot whose exploits were part of the legends of Edwards. Aviators there, using their most impressive pilot-talk, described an incident when Stafford was making only his third flight in the YT-38A jet. He entered the air base’s traffic pattern landing sequence and was turning from downwind onto the base leg
at approximately one thousand feet, which is at right angles to the runway. At that moment, the aircraft’s flap interconnect drive mechanism failed and exploded through the bottom of the fuselage. The YT-38A rolled dangerously until the wings were vertical. Stafford threw full opposite aileron control against the roll, but the jet continued to slowly roll past vertical toward an inverted position. So he immediately kicked in full top rudder and slammed on both afterburners. The aircraft skidded back to level flight about two hundred feet above the runway. He then retracted the one working flap and worked the aircraft back level for a successful high-speed landing. All of this happened in a few seconds. Damn, I thought, that was quick thinking. When I arrived at NASA, my first thought when I saw guys like Tom was, “Wow, there’s the guy who made that incredible maneuver I heard about.”

  The second group of NASA astronauts flew the most, both in the Gemini program and commanding missions to the moon. They entered the line at the right time and flew as much as they wanted to. All I got to do during the Gemini program was watch a launch. NASA was wrapping up that program by the time they selected me, and the liftoff I saw was one of the last. It was also the first manned launch I had ever seen in person, and I was thrilled, thinking “Hey, there go a couple of guys I know, and, God willing, I’m going to make the same trip some day.”

  I wasn’t just getting to know my fellow astronauts in the workplace; we also did fun things together on weekends. Some were activities that NASA didn’t always look kindly upon, but they had little control over our personal time. As long as we didn’t embarrass NASA, we were given the freedom to do what we wanted. I found out that two of the original seven astronauts, Gus Grissom and Gordo Cooper, were racing-car enthusiasts. They teamed up with Jim Rathmann to enter two cars in the Indianapolis 500 race, under the team name of GRC—Grissom Rathmann Cooper. After tinkering with cars so much as a teen, I was naturally intrigued by the speed and power of these race cars. I volunteered to work for the team’s pit crew.

  It was fun to be back working on cars, although we did not have much luck in the competition. Our main problem: we had a driver and car that couldn’t stay on the track. The first day testing the carburetor, our driver took the car out of the pit row and drove it straight into a wall. We had to drag the car back to the pit, tear it apart, x-ray all of the parts to check for cracks and bends, repair the chassis, and put it all back together again for the next day. That process took all day and all night. The next day, that driver started the engine and drove the car right into the wall again. After that, we gave up. We had been awake for almost forty-eight hours, and enough was enough.

  Most astronauts had some kind of outside interests while they were in the program, and many were in the business world. My interests never went in that direction; instead, I was engrossed with car racing. Eventually, Rathmann put together a Sports Car Club of America team. We had three Formula Vee cars, which we took to racetracks in Florida. The open-cockpit vehicles looked just like Formula One racers, but they were much smaller and powered by 1200cc Volkswagen engines. It was a fun weekend activity, and I was joined by fellow astronaut Pete Conrad.

  Pete was great fun to be around; he had an endless stream of jokes and stories to tell. Somehow he managed to be the center of attention wherever he went and was always laughing about something. He was a tiny little guy, but it made no difference. He commanded attention as if he were seven feet tall. Pete was already one of the exalted few who had flown two space missions, and he ended up flying four. He flew his first with Gordo Cooper, who probably got him into racing. Together with Gus Grissom, we were the four astronauts who raced sports cars.

  Like Pete, Jim Rathmann was fun: one of the world’s great practical jokers. He owned a large trailer that could transport three race cars, and we would head out to a racetrack, stay there Friday and Saturday nights, and race Saturday and Sunday. The Sports Car Club of America was a fun organization, full of great people who would all help each other. There was always a lively fireside party on Saturday nights. As it was a weekend activity, it didn’t really affect anybody when it came to work. We did, however, take a slight gamble on getting injured in a crash, but considered it a low probability.

  I don’t ever recall asking NASA for permission to race cars, but I don’t think I kept it a secret either. It was just something I did when I had the free time. Everyone knew that the four of us raced, and neither Deke nor Al ever said anything to me. The feeling was that we were all big boys, and while racing was not against the rules, they expected us to be careful.

  Racing cars became a new passion of mine.

  Later on, when I was assigned to a backup crew for a space mission, Deke did tell me, “Don’t do anything that will take you out. Don’t hurt yourself. When you get to a point where you think you are doing something too dangerous, then get out of it.” He was right: it was more important to stay healthy and on a crew than to have fun on weekends.

  Perhaps I should have listened earlier; I finally did have an accident at a racetrack. There was a driver we used to race against all the time who also worked as an undertaker. He would come to all the events with his race car inside the back of a hearse. He had a hard time staying away from other cars on the track and had bumped or wrecked a car in each of his last three races. We all hoped we wouldn’t be the next driver he’d crash into. The morning of one race he came up to me and said, “Al, I have a feeling that today is your day.” That was an ominous thing to hear, but I decided to race anyway.

  The track was an old World War II runway, which had been surfaced with a mix of asphalt and seashells. Over the years the seashells had worked loose, and they formed a loose, slippery coating on the top of the track. If you stayed on the main track it wasn’t too slippery, but toward the edges it was easy to skid. As the undertaker and I came around the first turn together, he went wide and started rotating as he slid on the shells. Yet he never took his foot off the gas. As soon as his car gained traction again, he shot across the track, right at me. There was nothing I could do. With a loud crunch he slammed right into the back of my car and almost tore the end off.

  Although I escaped injury, the danger was clear. If I kept racing I might lose my chance to fly in space. Nothing was worth taking that risk, so with regret I sold my car and quit the sport altogether. Although I believe Pete Conrad continued to race a little longer, the team soon broke up.

  Gordo Cooper wasn’t so lucky. He was one of my best friends by then, but I also knew he was bad news. He taunted authority. Deke pulled him out of a race at the Daytona racetrack, insisting that Gordo focus on spacecraft checkout work. Gordo had always pushed the rules a little, and this edict annoyed him no end. I think it had a lot to do with his leaving NASA altogether; he and the agency never recovered their faith in each other.

  Car racing wasn’t my only leisure pastime. I played handball with Mike Collins, raced speedboats, and also found time to water-ski. My home was only a short stroll away from a little bay that opened onto Clear Lake, and I water-skied down there almost every weekend to relieve tension and forget about work.

  Many people assumed that astronauts needed to be in top physical condition, and that NASA had some kind of exercise plan we all had to follow. Not true. Our bosses believed we were grown-ups who knew we had to stay in shape, and they allowed us to follow our individual sports and exercise pursuits. Ironically, we had some pretty unhealthy habits. For example, just about everybody smoked back then. It was not frowned on like it is today.

  I’m still smoking today. In fact I am probably the only person in the whole goddamn program who hasn’t given it up. I have managed to kick the habit for a couple of years at a time, but never completely. I smoked all the way through NASA, and so did almost everybody I ever shared an office with. If I could have worked out how to do it safely, I’d have smoked all the way to the moon and back.

  To keep up the waterskiing, I eventually bought a boat with one of the instructor pilots for NASA’s airplanes out at n
earby Ellington Field. Another astronaut named Walt Cunningham soon joined us. Walt and I also began playing handball two or three times a week, and we became very competitive, which really kept me on my toes. The Ellington instructor who joined us was competitive, too, but in a way that eventually took a dark turn.

  This guy was always jealous of the various perks that we received as astronauts. He could never understand why he wasn’t included in deals such as the Corvette leases. After all, he was one of our instructors, so he believed that he must be better than, or at least equal to us, and deserved any astronaut perks. Sadly, behind our backs, he turned to illegal activity to keep up with our lifestyles.

  He started flying an airplane to help smuggle marijuana across the Mexican border. Eventually, of course, he was caught and sent to jail. Because of his jealousy, he lost everything. Ironically, he would have made a great astronaut. He was a talented pilot and very bright. Yet he wasn’t smart enough to see that smuggling wasn’t the way to make money and keep pace with us. It was a sad situation: a guy rubbing shoulders with NASA’s astronauts one day and the next day frozen out forever. We had to forget about him and move on with our careers.

  Academic classes and weekend activities weren’t the only things we new guys were doing in our early years at NASA. When it fit around other activities, we did survival training. A spacecraft might have to come down almost anywhere on Earth in an emergency. We could spend days, or even weeks, on our own before help came, with only the items in our spacecraft for survival. Rather than carry out this training all in one go, we did it whenever there was time, often with months between sessions.