Pittsburgh native made trip to moon
Apollo 15 mission took off half century ago
Pittsburghers lifting off on a long journey head toward Moon to catch a flight. Fifty years ago this weekend, James B. Irwin joined an elite group who flew from another moon —the big one in the sky.
From July 31 to Aug. 2, 1971, the Pittsburgh native walked on the moon’s surface as part of NASA’s Apollo 15 mission, becoming the eighth human to set foot on Earth’s nearestspace neighbor.
According to NASA, he racked up 295 hours and 11 minutes in space — including 19 hours and 46 minutes of “extravehicular activity” outside the spacecraft. His mission was the fourth to land on the moon and the first to use the lunar rover vehicle that allowed astronauts to travel farther from the lunarmodule.
Along with collecting samples and completing other tasks over his three-day stay on the moon, Mr. Irwin carried with him a 6-by-6-inch Allegheny County flag, at the request of then-County Commission Chairman Leonard C. Staisey. When he returned, Mr. Irwin presented the flag to Mr. Staisey at the 1971 Allegheny County Fair at SouthPark.
His trip to the moon inspired him
to become deeply religious, nicknaminga lunar rock sample, estimated to be 4.15 billion years old, “the Genesis Rock.” The year after his moonwalk, he retired from the astronaut corps and founded the Colorado-based High Flight Foundation, a group focusing on researching a scientific basis for creationism rather than evolution.
“As I stood on the moon looking back at Earth, I knew there had to be an Almighty somewhere who had placed that beautiful thing out there in space,” a 1982 Pittsburgh Press column quotes him as saying.
The book “More Than Earthlings: An Astronaut’s Thoughts for Christ-Centered Living,” written by Mr. Irwin and released in 1983, detailed his belief that the Bible’s book of Genesis was a literal history. Some of his most notable expeditions in his post-astronaut life were unsuccessful searches on Mount Ararat in Turkey for remainsof Noah’s Ark.
“I thought the Lord wanted me involved in finding artifacts from the Genesis time that would be more important than the Genesis Rock we foundon the moon,” he said.
But he remained a powerful advocate for science, including supporting in 1976 the continuation of a physics course at Pittsburgh’s South HighSchool, saying he feared there was a declining interest in the subject after the class was one student shy of the 15 needed to meet the minimum enrollment.
“It’s distressing to me to learn that there may not be enough interest to justify continuing the physics course at SouthHigh School,” he said.
He also said he could not “see how we can continue to advance if that’s the case, especially in Pittsburgh, where so much of the nation’s science and technology are centered.”
He was born March 17, 1930, in Magee-Womens Hospital and lived in Beechview andBrookline before his family moved to Florida when he was 10. They later settled in California.
Hisfather was a steamfitter at the Carnegie Institute, which operates the Carnegie Museums, where Mr. Irwin said he was inspired by dinosaur bones and the Buhl Planetarium. His mother said he was about 12 years old when he told her that he wanted to be the first person to walk on the moon, something she didn’tbelieve was possible.
The interest he developed in flying and space travel was credited in part to watching planes lift off from Pittsburgh’s airport, then located in Moon. Before NASA selected him for astronaut training in 1966, he served in theAir Force and logged 7,015 hours of flying time, including 5,300 in jet aircraft.
Mr. Irwin died Aug. 8, 1991, after a heart attack, making him at age 61 the first Apollo astronaut to die.
He led the way for others from the Pittsburgh region to fly into space, including Stephen Frick, a 1982 graduate of what is now Pine-Richland High School, and Mike Fincke, a Sewickley Academy grad. Both of them participated in space shuttle missions.
Jerome “Jay” Apt, who was born in Massachusetts but graduated from Shady Side Academy, also flew on a space shuttle and participated in two spacewalks. He is currently a professor at CarnegieMellon University.