Space and Time
A talk with two of the women behind America’s first astronauts
When Pete Conrad became the third person to set foot on the moon, his wife, Jane, was glued to the TV back in Houston, awaiting news. After an oxygen tank exploded on Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 spacecraft, his wife, Marilyn, spent four days trying desperately to stay calm until he returned safely to Earth. Connie Schultz sat down with these two longtime friends, among the brave women included in author Lily Koppel’s new book, The Astronaut Wives Club, to ask them what that period of their lives was really like.
NASA was very involved in the personal lives of its original astronauts. How did you handle that?
JANE: NASA implied that we couldn’t do anything that might negatively affect our husbands’ careers.
MARILYN: When I was pregnant [in 1965], I hid it for as long as I could because I was afraid NASA wouldn’t let Jim go up.
JANE: I remember that. You had tears in your eyes when you told me. … But NASA also took care of us.
MARILYN: We always had security with us. They made sure no one bothered us during flights. But we could never go to the doctor for anything emotional. During Apollo 13, I held myself together because I had to. I had four children; Jim’s mother was in a nursing home. I called the staff and said, “Take her television out of the room. That’s her only son.” You put yourself in a shell. You worry about putting everyone else at rest. You light one cigarette and then another.
LIFE magazine had exclusive magazine rights to cover the astronauts and their families. Was that good or bad?
MARILYN: It was great. They protected us from other reporters.
JANE: My neighbor told me she heard one of the reporters in the yard say, “Put the microphone close to the window so you can hear her scream when it happens.” I imagine the reporter meant when the craft took off from the moon, or splashed
down. NASA termed these “high-activity” events, the ones that were most nerve-racking. With the book out, what do you want the public to know about you?
MARILYN: We aren’t shallow. We are independent women.
JANE: I’m an artist, and I’m writing flash fiction. I’m not trying to brag. There’s just more to us than comes across in the book.
MARILYN: And we never called ourselves “astrowives.” Why did so many of the original astronauts’ marriages not last?
JANE: It was a big ego trip for the men—women hanging around. Pete and I divorced after 37 years of marriage. Pete told our son he had cheated for 20 years. I was devastated. But it turned out to be the best thing. I’ve been married [to Seymour Dreyfus] for 22 years. When Pete died in that motorcycle accident [in 1999], I attended his funeral. His second wife got a flag, and I did, too. That mattered to me. I was Pete’s wife when he was an astronaut. Marilyn, Kathleen Quinlan and Tom Hanks played you and Jim in the movie Apollo 13. What did you think of the film? I loved it.
MARILYN: Tom stayed with us for a few days. Then Kathleen came. They studied how we interacted with each other. I still get choked up when I watch the movie. My only release back then was going to the bedroom and listening to the crew on the squawk box.
JANE: I was with her during that time. You know how wrong it can go. How have you two stayed friends all these years?
MARILYN: Whenever we see each other, it’s like we were never apart. Maybe it’s our generation.
JANE: Maybe women today don’t need friends like we did.
MARILYN: They have colleagues now. Children were our focus. It’s what we did. My granddaughter is working and raising a child. I don’t know how I could have done that.
JANE: And she can’t imagine doing what you did.