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_Moonwalker_ by Charlie Duke -- Review
I stumbled upon this book in my local library and didn't know it even
existed. Charlie Duke walked on the moon on Apollo 16 with fellow astronaut John Young. Duke writes a very readable book and is quite candid with several personal problems that hit him and his family during his astronaut career, and afterwards. This book is credited to both Charlie Duke and his wife Dotty. It was published in 1990 by Oliver-Nelson Books. About 90% of the book is Charlie Duke's autobiography, and the rest covers Dotty's life and the couple's religious beliefs in more recent years. The biggest surprise was learning that Charlie Duke had an identical twin brother. I'd never heard about an astronaut having a twin before. This led to some amusing incidents, as when Duke's brother Bill visited the Cape for the Apollo 16 launch and was spotted near a motel swimming pool by none other than Rocco Petrone, the top dog of the Apollo program. Petrone thought it was astronaut Charlie Duke and that he'd broken the pre-launch quarantine, and was hopping mad. It took a few phone calls to straighten it all out. (Bill Duke chose medicine for a career, becoming a gastroenterologist in South Carolina.) Charlie Duke wrote that the "blast room," located 100 feet beneath the launch pad at the Cape, was mounted on springs and was like being inside a bank vault. It held enough food for 30 days, because "it might take that long for you to be dug out" if the Saturn V blew up on top of you. Charlie Duke attended Annapolis but joined the Air Force. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and said it was by far the toughest school he ever attended. He earned his Master's degree in 1964. Among the indignities of space travel is eliminating body wastes. In zero G, everything floats, and the Apollo astronauts had to get completely undressed for the procedure while the others remained as far away from the action as they could get inside the tiny spacecraft. Duke wrote that Apollo 16 came dangerously close to running out of fecal containment bags. Why? Because the NASA doctors thought that the small heart problems experienced by the Apollo 15 crew could be linked to their severe loss of potassium. Therefore, potassium was added to Apollo 16's food. A side effect of this was, unfortunately, that the potassium acted as a laxative and the crew had to use the containment bags far more often than they would have liked. "The music we listened to on our way to the moon was performed by Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, and Floyd Cramer. Another friend of mine, entertainer Don Rickles, did a series of tapes for me which kept us in stitches, and we played them over and over again." Duke reports that he and John Young studied geology so intently that by the time all was said and done, "I had the equivalent of a master's degree" in geology. The two of them made it a rule throughout their training to devote at least one full day each week to geology. "I wish I knew how an astronaut is selected for a crew, but it is probably one of NASA's best-kept secrets," Duke writes. He said that he thought Deke Slayton would pick a mission commander, and the two of them together would pick the rest of the crew. "As with each previous flight, we selected names for our spacecrafts. John and I considered a number of choices for the lunar module, ranging from ships to star constellations. For a while our first choice was Beagle, after an old sailing ship, but we rejected that since it sank on one of its voyages. "That may be a bad omen," we reasoned. We finally settled on Orion because it is a prominent constellation and easy to pronounce and transmit to Mission Control. For the command module Ken chose the name Casper, of Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon character fame." [Matt: Think for a moment about the possibilities. "The _Beagle_ has landed."] Interestingly, Duke almost got bumped from Apollo 16. He came down with double pneumonia and was hospitalized for a week, wondering if he'd be fit to fly. Since he sorta/kinda caused Ken Mattingly to get bumped from Apollo 13, he knew NASA would have no qualms about shoving him out of the way if it meant getting the job done. But the launch got delayed for a month because of technical problems, by which time Duke was feeling fine. As John Young stepped onto the surface for the first time, his opening words were, "Our mysterious and unknown Descartes Highland plains, Apollo 16 is gonna change your image." "My first words we "Fantastic! That's the first foot on the lunar surface. It's super, Tony. We're making little footprints here about one-half inch deep." It wasn't much of a speech, but I was really excited." Understandably, Duke and Young enjoyed the brief experience of one-sixth gravity and discovered that they could throw things great distances. "ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package) contained all of the major scientific experiments, other than geology, that we were to conduct. ALSEP was to be powered by a little RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). The fuel element for the generator was stowed separately on the lunar module descent stage and had to be removed by a special tool and placed inside the ALSEP. This was a critical maneuver because it had a very high temperature and, if it accidentally touched my suit or gloves, would burn a hole, causing a decompression. Therefore I was very careful as I pulled the fuel element out of its stowage area and walked over to place it into the RTG. I sure didn't want to stumble over any rocks. I was relieved when I was able to tell Houston, 'The RTG is fueled.'" Once back inside the spacecraft with an oxygen atmosphere, the astronauts could actually smell the lunar material. Strangely, it smelled like gunpowder. It had an oily, slick feeling to it. The dirt and dust literally covered the two moon suits. If you've seen the excellent film _For All Mankind_, you hear Charlie Duke talking about a most unusual dream he had several months before the launch; he dreamed that while he and Young were driving across the lunar landscape in the rover, they came upon another set of tracks. They received permission from Houston to follow the tracks, which lead to another rover with two other astronauts in it, still. In this dream, Duke and Young discover that these are carbon copies of themselves, and the samples they bring back show that they'd been there for a hundred thousand years. "I rarely dream," Duke wrote, "and this was one of the most vivid dreams I ever had." The amount of lunar material they could collect was rigidly controlled, as it affected their lift-off weight and therefore launch trajectory. For a while it appeared that they'd collected too much material and may have had to discard some of it, but NASA said they could keep all they had. _From the Earth to the Moon_ covers the Apollo 16 incident in which Ken Mattingly lost his wedding ring somewhere inside the command module after he'd disrobed to "use the facilities." The three astronauts looked and looked, but never found it until they were on their way home from the moon and Duke and Mattingly went outside on a scheduled EVA. Duke found the ring as it floated out of the spacecraft and grabbed it. You can well imagine how an airtight room can smell after it's had three guys living in it for more than a week with no shower. Duke reported that many of the sailors on the landing carrier would get a funny look on their faces whenever they got close to the astronauts, until after they'd freshened up a bit. After all the excitement of Apollo 16 was over, Charlie Duke faced a big question: What now? The Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz crews had already been picked, and even though he served as backup for Apollo 17, there would be no chance for him to return to space until the Space Shuttle flew... and at that time, that could have been at least seven years. He resigned from the Air Force (though eventually reached the rank of brigadier general in the Re serves), left NASA and became a Coors beer distributor in San Antonio. [Matt McCullar: I live in Texas but wasn't aware of the history of Coors because I'm a non-drinker. A friend of mine explained that for many years you simply could not get Coors in many cities far from its home state of Colorado, and it's illegal to transport more than a certain amount of beer for your personal consumption over state lines. So when it was announced that Coors wanted to expand into the south Texas market in the 1970's, many businessmen jumped at the opportunity to become distributors. Very lucrative, very competitive. Duke and his business partner had originally tried to get Austin, but wound up with San Antonio instead.] Military wives can be clearly considered to be casualties of the Cold War. Most Apollo astronauts admit they saw very little of their families during training. When _Moonwalker_ gets to the final third, Dotty Duke contributes an entire chapter in which she had surprised her husband by threatening suicide. It was a major, painful revelation about how upset she had been for so long. She even experimented with marijuana. The Dukes eventually worked out most of their problems, fortunately, though it was not easy. Religion became a major point in their lives, which was one of the reasons why Charlie Duke got out of the beer business and quit drinking in 1978. The final part of the book is quite thorough on religion, though the overwhelming majority of the book discusses it not at all and is quite easy to read. It was quite brave of the Dukes to reveal their family turmoil in public. They remain one of the very few original astronaut couples who are still together. I thank them for writing. Matt J. McCullar Arlington, TX |
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On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 05:23:02 GMT, "Matt J. McCullar"
wrote: I stumbled upon this book in my local library and didn't know it even existed. Charlie Duke walked on the moon on Apollo 16 with fellow astronaut Thank you for telling this, and for typing so much in! --- Replace you know what by j to email |
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"Matt J. McCullar" wrote:
Charlie Duke attended Annapolis but joined the Air Force. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and said it was by far the toughest school he ever attended. He earned his Master's degree in 1964. You might check the dates of his attendance. After the USAF became an independent Service, but before the USAF Academy was built, larval USAF officers went through Annapolis or West Point. Because of the timing of this, a lot of the early astronauts 'appear' to have switched services, but actually didn't. D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. |
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You might check the dates of his attendance. After the USAF became an
independent Service, but before the USAF Academy was built, larval USAF officers went through Annapolis or West Point. Because of the timing of this, a lot of the early astronauts 'appear' to have switched services, but actually didn't. All I can tell you is what Charlie Duke wrote. He did attend Annapolis (the Naval Academy) but joined the Air Force instead. Exactly why he did this I do not remember because I did not note the details. But it may have had something to do with the Air Force trying to "pad" itself with officers and fliers, since the Air Force Academy was indeed still so new at the time... like an expansion football team siphoning off veteran players from other teams as well as drafting rookies. (I could well be dead wrong about this; I just don't remember.) Duke noted that he was not the only Annapolis graduate to do this. Perhaps he thought he had a better future in the Air Force than in the Navy. |
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On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 18:16:57 GMT, "Matt J. McCullar"
wrote: You might check the dates of his attendance. After the USAF became an independent Service, but before the USAF Academy was built, larval USAF officers went through Annapolis or West Point. Because of the timing of this, a lot of the early astronauts 'appear' to have switched services, but actually didn't. All I can tell you is what Charlie Duke wrote. He did attend Annapolis (the Naval Academy) but joined the Air Force instead. Exactly why he did this I do not remember because I did not note the details. But it may have had something to do with the Air Force trying to "pad" itself with officers and fliers, since the Air Force Academy was indeed still so new at the time... like an expansion football team siphoning off veteran players from other teams as well as drafting rookies. (I could well be dead wrong about this; I just don't remember.) Duke noted that he was not the only Annapolis graduate to do this. Perhaps he thought he had a better future in the Air Force than in the Navy. ....And this is *exactly* what happened. Quite a number of graduate aviators found themselves "drafted" into the Air Farce upon graduation despite four years of Naval training. While most West Point grads who started their commission training while the Army Air Corps were still in existence had AbZero problems with the conversion to the Air Farce, the DoD felt there still weren't enough pilots in the post-war commissioning channels to give the new branch enough manpower to get off to a stronger start. Hence the "drafting" from the Navy grads. IMHO, those aviators got screwed :-/ OM -- "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr |
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In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org writes: On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 18:16:57 GMT, "Matt J. McCullar" wrote: You might check the dates of his attendance. After the USAF became an independent Service, but before the USAF Academy was built, larval USAF officers went through Annapolis or West Point. Because of the timing of this, a lot of the early astronauts 'appear' to have switched services, but actually didn't. All I can tell you is what Charlie Duke wrote. He did attend Annapolis (the Naval Academy) but joined the Air Force instead. Exactly why he did this I do not remember because I did not note the details. But it may have had something to do with the Air Force trying to "pad" itself with officers and fliers, since the Air Force Academy was indeed still so new at the time... like an expansion football team siphoning off veteran players from other teams as well as drafting rookies. (I could well be dead wrong about this; I just don't remember.) Duke noted that he was not the only Annapolis graduate to do this. Perhaps he thought he had a better future in the Air Force than in the Navy. ...And this is *exactly* what happened. Quite a number of graduate aviators found themselves "drafted" into the Air Farce upon graduation despite four years of Naval training. While most West Point grads who started their commission training while the Army Air Corps were still in existence had AbZero problems with the conversion to the Air Farce, the DoD felt there still weren't enough pilots in the post-war commissioning channels to give the new branch enough manpower to get off to a stronger start. Hence the "drafting" from the Navy grads. IMHO, those aviators got screwed :-/ OM, much as I hate to counter your squidly experience, it ought to be pointed out that Nobody, but nobody, comes out a Service Academy (or ROTC, for that matter) as a Trained Aviator. (With an older exception I'll detail below) The rule was, and is, Comissioned Officer First, Aviator Second. You did your 4 years a West Point, Annanoplace, Zoomie U. or whatever, and then, if you were selected, you went off to UPT. (Some Services are diferent - the Marines, of course, are, despite their protestations, part of the Navy. The Coast Guard requires one normal Line Tour (As in boats) before Aviation Training. I don't know what NOAA does for its pilots, but I expect that they're ex Other Survice. AFAIK, the Public Health Service doesn't have airplanes) The exceptions are the various 1950s Aviation Cadet (Air Force) and NAVCAD (Navy) programs. Motivated guys with 2 years of College could go for flight training, and they were Comissioned upon completion of UPT. The Army went a different route, with specialist Pilots being named as Warrent Officers. (The Army still does this, in fact). With the drawdown in the sized of the various services in the 1960s, the Cadet programs were cancelled. The Marines, BTW, did, in ht elate 1950s, early 1960s, draft Aviators from Fighter and Attack units to fill out the ranks of the greatly expanding helicopter squadrons. This was not a Happy Time for guys who were dedicated F-8 drivers. -- Pete Stickney A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster |
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