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Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, but his long, strange trip began after Apollo 11. A7; Columnist Scott Maxwell’s grandfather helped Apollo 11 make history.
My grandfather helped Apollo 11 make history.
Sure, astronauts Neil Armstong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are the names forever etched in the textbooks. And rightfully so.
But the origin of the moon race didn’t start with that mission. Or even on Florida’s Space Coast.
It started at Langley Research Center in Virginia back in the 1940s when the famed astronauts were still in grade school.
I always knew my grandfather worked on the space program. We still have a bronze “Apollo 11” plate as a memento of his work as chief of the Research Models and Facilities Division at Langley.
But only lately did I really appreciate what he and the Langley crew did.
Granddad was an interesting man. He loved crossword puzzles — and was smart enough to do them quickly in ink. He liked telling funny stories and was a talented photographer.
He also happened to be a nudist — a joy he discovered late in life after retiring to Central Florida.
If that last part caught you off guard, imagine hearing it from your grandfather.
I think my facial reaction resembled Sigourney Weaver’s in “Alien” when the creature popped out of her crewmate’s chest.
This was a man I’d known as buttoned-down my entire life. Literally. I can’t ever recall him without a collared shirt.
Yet now he was telling us he didn’t care for shirts of any kind (or pants, socks and drawers, for that matter).
I remember his once pulling out a photo album from a trip — and my mother suddenly channeling Jackie Joyner-Kersee to long-jump across the dinner table and slam the cover shut before he could open it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For all that was decades after Apollo 11 blasted into the stars.
Harold I. Maxwell, my father’s father, was a West Virginia boy who attended two universities but never graduated from either — mainly because he didn’t need to. He was so good at modeling and simulation that he won a competition where the prize included a job at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA.
He thrived at NACA and was there only a few years before the early stages of the space race began.
It was the 1940s. The Germans were trying to get a missile into space. And Granddad was part of a small group that worked on an air-to-air missile program — a time later referred to as “the beginning of the Space program.”
The early efforts were littered with failures. One of the first missiles couldn’t even fly as fast as the planes it was attempting to hit.
But mistakes bred knowledge and advancements. About propulsion, aerodynamics and fuelefficiency.
So, by the time President Kennedy vowed to reach the moon, the Langley crew was primed.
The Lunar Orbiter Program Office was set up there with a 16-foot wind tunnel. And in 1969 — 50 years ago this week — Apollo 11 blasted toward the heavens.
The astronauts knew they were launched into history on the backs and brains of others. Pilot Michael Collins said earlier this week that his crew was “just the tip of a gigantic technological iceberg.”
The work at Langley was exciting. But also hard. The long hours and secretive nature took a toll on Granddad’s health. He’d had three heart attacks by the time he was 50 and retired shortly after, moving to Ormond Beach.
He and my grandmother relished retirement. They spent 25 years traveling, eating and laughing. “Live, Love, Laugh” was their motto. They were inseparable best friends.
But then Grandma died unexpectedly on Christmas morning in 1996 — and we weren’t sure how Granddad would carry on. She was the one who laughed loudest.
Then one day, during a photography outing around age 80, Granddad found himself at Playalinda Beach, where clothing is like sunscreen … optional. He ran into a fellow senior beachgoer (albeit one with less clothing) who told him the lifestyle was liberating.
Again, I can’t stress how strait-laced my grandfather appeared until then. He actually wore pocket protectors. But I imagine he
processed this new information the way he did everything at Langley … a theory to be modeled and tested.
So he did. And he liked it. He then spent much of his 80s visiting Playalinda, Cypress Cove and other places where visitors wanted to walk, hike or just relax uninhibited.
Was it odd for me and the rest of the family at first? Um, yeah. But we quickly decided: Good for him.
He could’ve crawled into a dark hole after his best friend and life partner died. Instead, he decided to keep doing what he’d done his whole life … exploring new frontiers.
We should all be so open-minded and brave. And happy.
He died in 2010 at age 91. So this week, as the world celebrates all the big names connected to Apollo, I’ll also look to the stars and think of the crew back at Langley. The ones who toiled on rockets when nobody else watched. The ones who were never afraid to try new things.
(My older brother, Jon, had notes and records that helped me pen this piece. He and Granddad shared a special connection, as Jon is also an engineer.)