When Alan Shepard flew on Apollo 14, he was the oldest man to fly in space at age forty-seven. He and Ed Mitchell were able to collect some moon rocks that held valuable information giving a picture of the moon’s early stages. Stuart Roosa was able to collect a valuable set of pictures that gave geologists a better view of the moon.

It is interesting to note that Mitchell said that “life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes…Clearly…the universe has meaning and direction.” Shepard noted about the Earth that “it is, in face, very finite, very fragile…so incredibly fragile. That thin, thin, atmosphere, the thinnest shell of air hugging the world – it can be blown away so easily! A meteor, a cataclysmic volcano, man’s own uncaring outpourings of poison…” Such great observations were made by Apollo 14 about our Earth and universe. As memorable as these observations were, what is almost more memorable was Alan Shepard’s golf shot with a six iron. That was followed by his famous quote, “There it goes! Miles and miles and miles!”

By God’s grace and plenty of vitamins, Deke Slayton’s irregular heart beat was cleared and he was allowed back into the flight rotation. It is clear that Shepard and Slayton had a hand in writing this book. Three chapters are devoted to covering Apollo 14 while only one chapter is devoted to covering Apollo 10, Apollo 11, and Apollo 12. Also one chapter is devoted to wrapping up the last three Apollo missions, summing up the program, summing up Skylab, and reintroducing Deke Slayton into the flight rotation. It would be really interesting to have a book written with contributions from all of the astronauts that flew in space.

Written in 1994, I believe this quote from Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee best sums up the end of the Apollo program.

“It’s been more than two decades since [Gene Cernan] spoke those words. No one will again tread lunar dust until sometime in the next century.”

Moon Shot was almost prophetic as it spoke of future efforts to build a great space station and ideas of returning to the moon and then continuing on to Mars. Project Constellation’s three main goals were to service the International Space Station, return man to the moon, and continue on to Mars. All that was before Congress cut the funding to Constellation, thereby ending the program. What the United States needs for its manned space program is another space race.

            It was neat to read about the efforts made in the Apollo-Soyuz project to make peace between the two countries. Language was a major barrier for the two. In the beginning, a whole work day would accomplish about five minutes of work. Another thing that struck me was that each country had its own atmosphere. After the Americans partied a bit too much on their first stay in Russia, the Russians built a three story apartment building for them behind the barbed wire of Star City.

“Deke [Slayton] and Tom [Stafford] allowed that it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Russians had bugged the entire hotel. You couldn’t sneeze without everything being listened to and recorded.

‘So we put it all to good use,’ Deke laughed. ‘We learned to talk to the walls, the lamps, the mirrors – anything and everything. Because everything had ears. One of our guys said how great it would be if we had more towels and soap. Presto, we had them the next night. Another of the guys said, real casual-like, how great it would be if we had a pool table in the place. Sure enough, we came back after work, and that night we almost fell over a pool table. It was sort of archaic, the kind of table you’d find in a museum back in the States, but it was still a pool table.

‘We played it carefully, not getting greedy about things. But there were a couple Russian technicians working with us we didn’t like. So we talked to a lamp one night about what assholes we thought these guys were, and, oh man, we never saw those guys again. They just vanished.’

            -Moon Shot by Shepard, Slayton, Benedict, and Barbee

Today I was given another point of relating to Deke and Alan being grounded. My doctor told me that I cannot SCUBA dive, or even go to camp, if I am still having mood swings. I have not been able to find that holy grail of total stability. Whoosh, it felt like they yanked my wings and grounded me. I will not let this stop me, though.