Back to the moon: What’s old is new again
Remember the 1970s? This is not a rhetorical question. Perhaps a purple haze blocks the memory circuits. But I remember the ‘70s. I was in high school in western Nebraska, and I watched the space race unfold on network TV — we were going to the moon again in December of 1972.
I thought it was so cool that my favorite metal band, Deep Purple, released the album Machine Head with a song about space travel, “Space Truckin.” I was surprised when my friends told me the song was about using drugs. I thought to myself, “What are they talking about?” Back then, living in Nebraska, how could you keep track of the trends when you didn’t know what they were?
Now, 50 years later, it’s time look back at the final manned lunar landing. The launch of Apollo 17. On Dec. 7, 1972, at 12:33 a.m. EST, the mighty Saturn 5 spectacularly lit up the night sky.
On board were two pilots and one scientist. Having a scientist on board was a first. This scientist was a geologist from Santa Rita, N.M. (now a ghost town). His name is Harrison H. Schmitt, and he earned a doctorate in geology from Harvard in 1964, one year before he was selected by NASA in 1965. The astronaut corps, all of whom had a background in military aviation, nicknamed this serious fellow “Dr Rock.” Schmitt was named the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17. After he retired from NASA, this lifelong Republican served as a New Mexico senator in the 1980s before he was replaced by Democrat Jeff Bingaman, who was subsequently replaced by Martin Heinrich.
Eugene A. Cernan was the commander of Apollo 17 and had been to the moon before aboard Apollo 10. This naval aviator definitely had the right stuff. He wrote a book of his life titled The Last Man on the Moon. Who else but Cernan would name John Wayne as his hero? He was married and had four daughters when he died in 2017.
Ronald E. Evans was the command module pilot and was from St. Francis, Kan. He circled the moon in the command module, while the other two crew members went down to the surface, and holds the record for the most time spent in lunar orbit, over 145 hours. After he retired in 1977, he became a coal company executive. He died at 56 in 1990.
The mission lasted 12½ days, and Cernan and Schmitt logged a record 75 hours on the lunar surface. They drove a record 22 miles in the lunar rover. They brought home 243 pounds of lunar rocks. They even discovered orange soil at Shorty Crater.
In the book by Gene Kranz, Failure is Not an Option, the sequence of events during those days is well chronicled, but one ‘70s moment stands out for me. On occasion, flight directors take over the CapCom’s job in selecting the crew’s wake-up music. Kranz selected “Light My Fire” by the Doors as they handed over flight director duties to the new generation. Every time I hear this song, it takes me back to another place, another time and another world. It makes me happy and younger.
Three days after leaving the moon, on Dec. 19, 1972, they landed in the Pacific Ocean, where a waiting U.S. naval carrier, the USS Ticonderoga, dispatched a helicopter to pick them up. Mission accomplished.
Why were the three remaining Apollo lunar landing missions (18, 19 and 20) canceled? Astronaut John Young claims NASA was afraid of losing a crew. Wikipedia claims there was “a variety of reasons, including changes in technical direction, the Apollo 1 fire, hardware delays, and budget limitations.” I believe the main problem was the loss of political will. Congress started cutting NASA’s budget right after Apollo 12, November 1969, because the “space race” with the USSR had been won, and because our ill-conceived war in Asia was creating a massive protest movement. Soon after, in April 1970, Apollo 13 narrowly escaped catastrophe on the way to the moon when a fuel cell exploded, and the budget cuts kept coming.
Now, 50 years later, the political will is back, and Congress has changed its mind. A new moon rocket, the 322-foot-tall Artemis, has been legislated into being, and the first test flight to the moon was completed successfully. What’s old is new again. Godspeed.