Apollo 11 press conference was awkward

Lovell had to orbit the moon twice without walking on it. He was on Apollo 8. Obviously there was no moon landing involved with that, but that had to make the second time that much harder.

 

Armstrong, to his credit, is well aware that his place in history was luck of the draw and not because of any special gift or talent.

When these crews were being put together and assigned missions, no one knew what mission would actually be the first to land on the moon. The only "favorite" for the spot was Gus Grissom (which became moot after his death in the fire).

Landing on the moon was the first "G" mission. But if the first "F" mission (Apollo 10) had not been successful, then Apollo 11 would have simply been an "F-2" mission and Apollo 12 would have been the first to land. The fact that none of the missions of Apollo 7, 8, 9 or 10 had to be repeated came as a surprise.

Armstrong knows he is no better than most of the dozens of astronauts he worked with. So he was never comfortable with being treated as more special.

Deke Slayton actually offered Armstrong the chance to replace Aldrin with Lovell. But Armstrong decided against it because he felt Lovell deserved to be the commander of a lunar mission (Aldrin's position as LM pilot was No. 3 on the crew).

 

Armstrong as many have noted is almost pathologically shy and uncomfortable with the spotlight.

He could have turned himself into a cottage industry and a media superstar, but very consciously chose against it.

Buzz Aldrin, in contrast, in his dotage, has turned almost into the Terrell Owens/Brett Favre of the astronaut corps. In some ways that's not a bad thing, because it does keep Apollo 11 and space travel at least somewhat in the public eye, but I'm not really sure the world needed a Buzz Aldrin/Snoop Dogg duet at this time.

I think it would be nice if Armstrong would be a little more accessible, and Aldrin maybe a little less.

 

I've often wondered the same thing about Collins. You get all the way there and you have to "wait in the car," so to speak, while your partners make history.

I saw a recent documentary and was interested to see that Gene Cernan, who was on Apollo 10, which went to the moon, circled around it and may have even hovered over it in the lunar module, did get to walk on the moon on a later Apollo mission. He was actually the last man to walk on the moon.

 

I always liked the scene in "Apollo 13" where Lovell's wife is trying to keep his mother calm. She introduces Aldrin and Armstrong to mom, who asks "Are you boys in the space program too?"
A dramatization, I know, but still funny to think there actually ARE people out there who have no clue who those guys are.

 

If you're interested in the moon landing and haven't seen it, rent "In The Shadow Of The Moon," a documentary from a couple of years ago that has great interviews and the best collection of footage I've ever seen.

 

Cool. Just moved it to the top of the Netflix queue.

Anyone have any book recommendations, either on the Apollo missions or the space program in general?

 

Not a book, Storm, but if you haven't seen the Discovery Channel's "When We Left Earth" mini-series, you'd love it.

 

Discovery, I believe, is running the original coverage of the moon landing tonight.

 

Ditto. Just watched the whole thing. Loved it.

 

Collins wrote a good book on it all, Carrying the Fire.

For the 40th anniversary, he put out a Q&A with himself; the quoted parts are from his book.

-------------------------------------------
Q. Did you have the best seat on Apollo 11?
A. No.

"The cancellation of 014 also freed Borman-Stafford-Collins for
reassignment, and reassigned we were, but not as a unit. Tom Stafford
moved up a notch and acquired his own highly experienced crew, John
Young and Gene Cernan; they became McDivitt's back-up. Score one for
Tom. Borman and Collins got promoted to prime crew of the third
manned flight, picking up Bill Anders as our third member.

In the process, Collins also got 'promoted' from lunar module pilot to
command module pilot, and lost right then and there his first chance
to walk on the surface of the moon. The reason I had to move up was
that Deke at that time had a firm rule that the command module pilot
on all flights involving LM must have flown before in space, the idea
being that he didn't want any rookie in the CM by himself. Since Bill
and Anders had not flown, I was it. Slowly it sunk in. No LM for me,
no EVA, no fancy flying, no need to practice in helicopters anymore."


Q. Were you happy with the seat you had?
A. Yes, absolutely. It was an honor.

Here's the transcript of the brief self-Q&A, with only references and not full quotes from the book. It does mention he's a Redskins fan.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-164_Collins_Statement.html

 

I recorded the series, but I haven't watched it yet. I'm saving it for a rainy day.