"Houston, We've Got a Problem."

These are the worst words you can hear from the commander of a space capsule. More importantly, these are the worst words that commander will ever have to utter. The cold, harsh reality of space takes over at a time like that. You realize, possibly for the first time, that in spite of the team on the ground; essentially; you’re alone. Everybody else gets to go home for dinner, but not you.

Thursday was the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13. If you, or your children, have never seen one of these blast-offs before- it’s worth watching for that alone. But the real meat of the story is told using clips of both the ground crew, and the astronauts themselves, as they rack their brains for a solution to the problem, which is carefully explained in the video. That problem occurred in the early hours of April 14^th when an oxygen tank ruptured.

Ron Howard did an exceptional job with Tom Hanks in chronicling the Apollo 13 flight and it’s near disaster. But nothing can compete with the actual events, as evidenced in this short film from NASA, and available on you tube. Only some duct tape and a ballpoint pen saved the day for the crew. The ground support team worked long and hard to devise the “fix” that would allow the crew of Apollo 13 to return to Earth safely.

For several days the world watched and waited as the Apollo capsule got closer and closer to its scheduled splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.  Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert may not have made it to the Moon as planned, but they achieved something far greater in their victory over technology gone wrong almost 200,000 miles from the nearest repair facility. That they did so with an improvised solution, under such arduous conditions, made the feat all the greater. We had already been to the Moon and back. But this was a real “cliffhanger”, as the whole world watched and waited for their safe return.

Space Race

Yesterday's final launch of the space shuttle reminded me of the first space launch with a manned capsule by the United States. It was in May of 1961, a mere 3 weeks after the Soviets had put their first man in space with Yuri Gagarin's flight. Both flights were breakthroughs. Literally.

The idea was to see if a man could ride a rocket, puncture the atmosphere, and then return to earth alive. This was really an intense moment for our nation as we tried to catch up to the Soviets in a race to put the first man on the moon. With the score at 1-0, in favor of the Soviets, this was a riveting event. With 2 explosions of Redstone rockets already behind us, no one knew just what would happen that morning when Alan B. Shepard took off for his 15 minute flight.

I was on a "split" session for 1st grade, meaning that the school was overcrowded, making it necessary to have a morning class, and then an afternoon one. I was lucky. I had the afternoon class, which meant that I got to watch the liftoff, as well as the subsequent recovery of the capsule at sea.

For the next 8 years we watched with bated breath as the rockets kept going up; bigger and better rockets, carrying bigger and better capsules. There was the first orbit by John Glenn in a single man Mercury capsule, followed by the 2 man Gemini program, which gave us the first "space walk", proving that a man could perform simple tasks in a weightless environment. Then came the 3 man Apollo program, our final stage in reaching the moon.

Who can ever forget that 1968 Christmas Eve orbit of the moon, with the reading of Genisis? And 7 months later, in July of 1969, we walked the surface of that planet. As I watched yesterday's lift off of the last shuttle I was filled with mixed feelings. I'm not sure what real benefits we actually derived from the space program. But I'm sure glad we did it.

"We Seven" by The Mercury Astronauts

If you were over 5 or 6 years old in 1960 you will remember the first Mercury flights that presaged our landing on the Moon in 1969. Theses were 1 man capsules designed solely to test whether man could break through the atmosphere, orbit the earth, perform various mechanical jobs outside the capsule and return safely. These were all the same elements required to land on the Moon.

The Russians had already beat us with the first man in space by some 6 months. We were bound and determined to catch up and pass them in the “Space Race.” The ultimate goal was a manned landing on the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade.

7 men were deemed qualified to undertake the rigorous training that would be required to perform these initial missions. They would work closely with the engineers and scientists who would develop the capsules and the gear required for them.

I remember the first blast off from Cape Canaveral, later Kennedy Space Center, by Alan B. Shepard in April of 1961. I was in 1st grade and on split sessions. So I got to watch the event on TV before heading off to school in the afternoon. That first flight was 15 minutes up and back down, just enough time to punch through the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. There the capsule and Shepard were both retrieved by an aircraft carrier. It was all so dramatic and scary. It was the unknown. And we got to watch it live.

The charm of this book is the telling of the story by the 7 men who lived it. They worked together to perfect the mission they would be tasked to perform. The stories they relate here are both anecdotal and scientific in nature. One moment you are learning about spacecraft attitude adjustments and the next you are reading about weightlessness and its’ effects on the human nervous system.

Everything had to be designed specifically for the mission. This was new ground being broken and there were no real rules.

The book is written in such a way that each astronaut takes his turn writing about a particular subject. This gives the reader a good overview of the subject from 7 different perspectives. The book traces the story of the 7 men from the selection process and on through to each of their individual flights.

It’s hard to write a book about such a complex subject and still have it remain “readable.” And these guys do a great job of it. Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton were 7 men whose extraordinary courage changed history. And now they have given us a superb, inside look at the work behind those achievements.