My notes from the Apollo 17 splashdown 30th anniersary party, Dec. 19, 2002 (long)
John Charles
series of Apollo 17 events across the country葉hat was held at Space
Center Houston on Friday night, Dec. 19, 2002. Lots of retired and
even some current astronauts, and lots of old-time mission control
types. At the formal dinner, my wife and I sat with another couple at
the table right next to Al Bean, but we didn't recognize him until
late in the dinner. Gene Cernan drifted over and they posed for
photos together悠 had to duck out of the way to avoid blocking their
shots.
We missed the social hour, but SCH is a neat place to have event such
a this one, when you can see the men who made history, the women who
stood behind them, and the flight controllers (men, and a few women)
who made it all possible milling around underneath and among some of
their spacecraft and space suits.
After dinner, we moved into the Mazda IMAX Theater for the
presentations by VIPs and then the crew. Long-time NASA manager
Norman Chaffee kicked it off, and said that when they started planning
this, about two years ago, they hoped to get about 150 people to buy
the tickets ($40 apiece) so they could make their money back, but in
fact they sold nearly 500 tickets, and that theater was almost full.
(Norm Chaffee is head of the NASA Alumni League and they sponsor
events such as this. And, no, I don't believe that he is related to
Roger Chaffee, although the names are spelled the same.)
Gene Kranz was the master of ceremonies, and he had various
inspirational comments written up to introduce each speaker. But the
biggest laughs came when he kept referring to "Apollo 17" as "Apollo
13" and finally muttered, "Freudian slip." At one point, both Cernan
and Jack Schmitt got up out of their front row seats and (jokingly)
started to walk out, pretending to be insulted or maybe that they were
just at the wrong party!
The speakers were Kranz, General Jefferson Davis Howell (the new
director of next-door Johnson Space Center), Owen Morris (a mission
planner), Gerald Griffin (Apollo flight director and one-time JSC
director), one of Max Faget's deputies who substituted for him (I've
blanked on his name, but he did real good with only 5 minutes'
notice揺e said Faget was always late, and he was sure he'd show up
just in time to do his talk, but this time he really didn't make it
after all), and then Cernan, Schmitt and the widow of Ron Evans.
Cernan's talk was about the same as you can read in his book or hear
at any other presentation. Jan Evans represented the wives (a group
of unsung heroes in the race to the moon, to be sure!), but I didn't
get most of her jokes, because they were too insider-oriented. She
chided Kranz about not packing Ron's "dinner number nine." She also
said that NASA never told the wives how to do their lives, meaning not
so much that they received no "orders" but rather that they received
no "guidance" or even assistance. This seemed at odds with the
stories I'd previously read about "protocol officers" being assigned
to the wives and families during the missions, but what do I know?
Schmitt was interesting enough that I actually started scribbling down
some notes, and below is what I can reconstruct from them.
He mentioned the 1968 La Jolla (California) Apollo conference at which
the options for lunar mobility were discussed: either the Lunar Roving
Vehicle (LRV) or the Lunar Flying Vehicle (LFV). He said that each
had its champions (field geologists wanted LRV, while geochemists
wanted LFV), but that when Faget got up to speak, he listed the
strengths and weakness of each, and in the end it was obvious that the
LRV was the way to go.
Schmitt recalled how very young the flight control teams were, only in
their twenties, with Kranz an old man at 35 years old or so, while the
astronauts were in their late thirties or older.
He talked about his hopes to send Apollo 17 to the lunar farside,
until one day Chris Kraft (then director of the Manned Spacecraft
Center) bumped into Schmitt at the water cooler and told him to forget
about it. This and other far-out plans were conceived by the 銑unar
Mafia" (including George Abbey), who sometimes gathered at the
"Singing Wheel" (a watering hole long since gone), which was the site
of at least one memorable shuffleboard game (I am not making this up)
between Schmitt and Abbey on one team and Rod Loe and someone else on
the other team. (Again, lots of inside, you-had-to-be-there stuff.)
He observed that there was a full-moon that night, just like 30 years
ago.
Schmitt paid tribute to the operational pilots at Ellington AFB, who
kept the T-38's ready for the astronauts.
He also mentioned a classic photo (which I have not been able to
locate) of Ron Evans in-flight with a bag of salmon salad, showing an
air bubble inside of the bag. He said that no one could recall
requesting that salmon salad, so it never got eaten, and that is why
it is still on display in some museum (didn't say where) to this very
day, as an example of "flown space food."
The speakers all paid tribute to the giants, like Gilruth, and
especially to Chris Kraft, who was there, as were Duke, Haise, Weitz
and Bobko (and Bean and Cernan) and probably others that I didn't see.
I also saw several "first wives" (including Lo Cunningham) and we sat
with Harriet Eisele (a friend of my wife's) and Faye Stafford. Oh,
yeah, the secretaries of the Apollo era were there and were
acknowledged by the speakers, too, for the important roles that they
played.
All in all, an interesting evening.
John Charles
Houston, Texas
Rick Wagoner
Was it really 30 years ago....? Geez that makes me 51!
Where did the time go!?
Happy New year to all,
Rick
KG6OKW