On Wednesday, June 8, I had the pleasure of meeting my first astronaut and it was none other than Captain Alan Bean, the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 12, fourth man to walk on the moon, and Commander of Skylab Mission II (see my photo album from the night in the column on the right).
I met Alan at a dinner put on by the Center for Business Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. A friend from my astronomy club, Dan Lorraine, had secured an invitation for me to attend a VIP reception before the dinner so I had the opportunity (along with about 40 other people) to speak with Alan, have a picture taken, and get his autograph. In the entire history of humanity, out of the billions and billions of people who have ever existed, only twelve people have walked on the Moon. It was an awe-inspiring experience to walk up to and shake hands with one of those twelve.
When we were speaking, I told him that I was a Space Camp counselor when I was younger and that I had had an opportunity to touch a piece of Skylab after it had fallen to Earth. I also told him that my stepfather worked at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, and was the engineer who figured out the angle that the Saturn V rocket had to tip prior to lift-off to avoid colliding with the launch tower. He smiled and responded, “It worked!”
I had him sign my copy of Apollo, a collection of Alan’s paintings and memories of being an astronaut and moonwalker.
It was surreal to be hanging out with friends from my astronomy club and Alan Bean. What an experience!
After the reception, we moved on to the dinner. Though there were 550 people at the dinner, our club had two tables in the front and I got to sit right in front of the podium where Alan was going to speak. Several businesses had donated tables (at $500/table) so that local children could come hear Alan speak and there were 240 kids at the dinner. Before the dinner, Alan went to each of the kids’ tables so that they could have their pictures taken with him.
After dinner and the rest of the evening’s ceremonies, Alan spoke to the crowd about the Apollo 12 mission and the space program. It was a very inspirational, personal talk. He was at times funny, at times motivational, at times educational – always uplifting. I took a few notes and here were some of the points that most struck me:
As he was talking about how each of us has unlimited potential, he looked out and said, “There are a lot of kids here tonight who have taken and will take many tests in their lives. But you need to know that there is not a test in this world that can tell you what you will accomplish in the future. That is up to you.”
As he was talking about space flight and the current grounding of the Space Shuttle due to the Columbia accident and subsequent NASA review, he said, “There will never be safe space flight. There will be more accidents and more deaths. But we can’t let that stop us anymore than the fact that we know people will have car accidents today can stop us from getting in our cars and driving. We must explore.”
- Alan shared a fun insider story from the Apollo 12 mission. He and Dick Conrad discussed bringing an arrowhead to the moon and then on their EVA tossing it onto the ground. Then as they walked back and forth with their video camera, they could casually sweep across the area with the arrowhead and wait for Mission Control to call out in their headsets a few seconds later, “Wait! Wait! Go back!” They decided not to do it because they figured they would get “strung up.”
Alan talked about how the writers of the Bible pictured the Garden of Eden as lying in the Tigris/Euphrates river valley. But when he was at the black and white, sterile Moon and looked back at the colorful, dynamic Earth, the whole Earth looked like the Garden of Eden to him. He said, “We all live in the Garden of Eden and don’t even realize it.”
In talking about our uniqueness as individuals, Alan said that we are each a unique combination of thoughts, feelings and experiences and that the “song” in each of us is unique, that “if we don’t sing the song in our soul, that it will never be sung in the entire universe ever.”
When Alan splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, he looked out the window at the bobbing blue ocean and the passing clouds and thought they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen. He said he was seeing them with alien eyes after being away for only 10 days. Now, he never complains about the weather, or traffic or standing in line because he is so blessed to be sharing this beautiful Earth with all of us.
After his talk, Alan hung around and signed autographs for the kids. It was great to hear 8-year olds running away with their eyes on fire as they excitedly told their friends and parents that they “got his autograph!” Actually, I guess I did the same thing when I got his autograph. As he was leaving for the night, the astronomy club grabbed him for a final group picture.
Overall, it was an amazing experience. It was certainly one of the top ten experiences of my life and something I will never forget. Thank you, Alan!
Today is the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, marking the first time humans walked on the Moon. For those of you with a love for accuracy, the landing occurred at exactly 4:17:40 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969.
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