WEBVTT

1
00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:15.919
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corrumbus. Our guest in this edition is

2
00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:22.280
retired US Air Force Brigadier General and
NASA astronaut Charles Duke. General Duke served

3
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:27.280
as the lunar module pilot for the
Apollo sixteen mission to the Moon in April

4
00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:30.399
of nineteen seventy two. In general, it's an honor to have you with

5
00:00:30.440 --> 00:00:32.640
us. Thanks, thank you.
A pleasure to be here with you.

6
00:00:32.840 --> 00:00:35.759
Where were you born and raised?
Sir? I was born in Charlotte,

7
00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:43.439
North Carolina, but mostly raised in
South Carolina. This was all during World

8
00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:48.200
War Two, so we moved to
count My dad joined the Navy and we

9
00:00:48.240 --> 00:00:51.520
moved to California for a couple of
years, and he went overseas. We

10
00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:55.359
moved back to South Carolina, and
then when he came back, we went

11
00:00:55.399 --> 00:01:00.640
to Florida for a year and then
back to South Carolina. My folks raised

12
00:01:00.759 --> 00:01:04.719
us in my twin brother and I
in South Carolina. Any other family members

13
00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:11.280
with a history of military service in
your family? My dad and then way

14
00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:18.920
back in ancestors on my mom's sad, I'd fought in the Revolutionary War and

15
00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:26.040
one others it This is a long
list of of veterans. Why did you

16
00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:29.120
decide to attend the US Naval Academy. Well, my dad had been in

17
00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:36.560
the Navy during World War Two and
he enlisted joined They made him an officer

18
00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:41.319
because of his He was thirty five
years old, if I remember correctly,

19
00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:45.599
and didn't have to go, but
he said, I'm joining. So he

20
00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:49.120
went off to supply school and went
to the Navy and went off supply school,

21
00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:55.920
and he made him an officer and
he served for four years almost five.

22
00:01:56.280 --> 00:02:01.640
I guess as a as a naval
supply of ser so growing up in

23
00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:08.759
World War Two, my heros were
all the military guys, and since my

24
00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:12.960
dad had been in the Navy,
I said, well, I want to

25
00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.719
go to the Naval Academy. I
didn't even know you could fly airplanes from

26
00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:20.960
the Naval Academy. But when I
went. But I went off to school

27
00:02:21.400 --> 00:02:28.400
prep school an't Farragut Academy in Saint
Petersburg, Florida, to get prepared to

28
00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:31.560
get into the Naval Academy. And
it was a good move for me.

29
00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:38.599
I learned how to march, salute, obey regulations, live on my own

30
00:02:38.639 --> 00:02:43.319
at fifteen, star did at fifteen
and make my bed and all that stuff.

31
00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:49.960
So I got the Naval Academy and
I felt right at home, and

32
00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:53.719
then I realized you could go.
They gave me some airplane rides at the

33
00:02:53.800 --> 00:03:00.120
Navy at Naval Academy, and that
did it. I said, airplanes have

34
00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:05.719
a lot more appeal to me than
ships. So back then there wasn't an

35
00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:12.759
Air Force Academy, and this was
in the mid fifties, and so they

36
00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:20.240
would allow west pointers and midshipman to
volunteer for the US Air Force up to

37
00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:27.520
twenty five percent of the glass.
And so I had a choice to make.

38
00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:32.319
It was should I be a naval
aviator or an Air Force aviator?

39
00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:38.280
And the decision was made by a
doctor at the Naval Academy during my senior

40
00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:42.400
year. He told me, I
said, Mitchell, me, duke,

41
00:03:42.479 --> 00:03:46.000
you have a stigmatism in your right
eye, and you don't qualify for naval

42
00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:50.039
aviation, but the Air Force will
take him. So that put me the

43
00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:53.759
Air Force much of a dilemma.
He had your decision right there. And

44
00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:59.000
so after you were commissioned, what
were you flying? I went to flight

45
00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:03.919
school, and this was in the
summer of nineteen fifty seven. Was flying

46
00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:09.240
T thirty fours and INN T twenty
eight, and then I went to basic

47
00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:16.480
training and that was a T thirty
three first jet that was in black training.

48
00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:21.959
And then from there and went to
advanced training F eighty six the interceptor

49
00:04:23.079 --> 00:04:26.879
model, since so it was an
interceptor pilot, came out as an INTERCEPTI

50
00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:30.759
pilot. Tell me a little bit
about serving in Germany. Around the time

51
00:04:30.759 --> 00:04:34.040
of the Berlin Wall going up.
We were sitting alert. By this time

52
00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:38.759
we had F one oh two's.
I was in the five twenty six fighter

53
00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:46.160
Interceptor squadron and I got to Germany
in summer May of nineteen fifty nine.

54
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.560
It was also the that was the
beginning of NASA and also the beginning of

55
00:04:51.600 --> 00:04:59.879
astronauts and Yuri Gagarn that was sixty
one. But Sputnik went up when I

56
00:04:59.879 --> 00:05:06.480
was in flight school and changed the
whole dynamics of Cold War, and so

57
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:13.920
I enjoyed being in Germany. It
was a great experience. We had a

58
00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:23.120
lot of exciting scrambles to intercept things
along to Czechoslovaking border and East Germany.

59
00:05:23.240 --> 00:05:27.360
So it was a good assignment.
I really loved it. How did you

60
00:05:27.399 --> 00:05:30.839
get the opportunity to pursue astronaut training. Did they find you or did you

61
00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.040
go for it? I got finished
in Germany in nineteen sixty two, was

62
00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:40.120
my third year, and I felt
like I ought to go to graduate school.

63
00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:46.759
So I applied to graduate school through
the Air Force Institute Technology and they

64
00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:54.560
sent me to MT. MT had
to contract to build Apollo guidance and navigation

65
00:05:54.639 --> 00:06:00.160
system, so they needed two pilots
to help out on this system. And

66
00:06:00.319 --> 00:06:06.120
that was my thesis. And so
as I was working on this program,

67
00:06:06.560 --> 00:06:12.800
I met a lot of astronauts came
up to visit to see what this thing

68
00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:16.000
was going to look like, this
guidance and navigation system, And I never

69
00:06:16.079 --> 00:06:20.959
met anybody was so gung ho about
their job and excited about their job.

70
00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:28.800
And I asked him, Charlie Bassett. I was killed shortly after that,

71
00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:32.879
but in an airplane crash. But
Charlie said, I said, Charlie,

72
00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:36.800
how do I get this job?
He said, you got to finish your

73
00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:42.279
degree and go to test pilot school
and you might have a chance. So

74
00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:48.560
when I graduated and as summer of
nineteen sixty four, I got selected to

75
00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:54.839
test polot school and started out in
test pilot school and Edwards Air Force Base,

76
00:06:55.759 --> 00:07:00.600
and the next year I graduated and
went to went on staff at the

77
00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:08.680
Test Bolot School and I was in
July sixty five, and then in September

78
00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:13.600
NASA had another call for astronauts and
it was my chance. So I volunteered

79
00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:16.560
and was selected and started in nineteen
sixty six. Now, one of the

80
00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:20.839
big jobs you had after becoming an
astronaut was to oversee the development of the

81
00:07:20.920 --> 00:07:25.680
lunar module propulsion system. Correct,
yes, correct, What were the keys

82
00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:30.279
to putting that together successfully? Well, the decent engine was having no problems,

83
00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:35.199
but the ascent engine was on the
verge of instability. Now I'm not

84
00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:41.279
a propulsion engineer, but I was
monitoring the systems for the Astronaut Office,

85
00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:46.480
and so I was meeting all of
these NASA engineers who were propulsion engineers,

86
00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:51.160
and they were very concerned about the
stability of the stent engine. That thing

87
00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:55.399
had to work if you're going to
get off the Moon. That engine had

88
00:07:55.439 --> 00:08:03.360
to run for seven minutes without a
blimp. And the director of the Apollo

89
00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:11.720
program, George Lowe, got concerned
about the engine, so he developed a

90
00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:18.120
appointed, let me say, a
special committee of engineers. And I was

91
00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:24.279
the astronaut representative on that committee,
and we had to go around to investigate

92
00:08:24.519 --> 00:08:30.800
the present manufacturer who had to contract, and then find if we weren't satisfied,

93
00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:35.720
we had to go out and look
for other rocket companies that maybe could

94
00:08:35.799 --> 00:08:41.120
fit the deal. Well, after
about six months we had decided that as

95
00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:46.480
a committee that we need to change
contractors and go with rocket Dine. That

96
00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:50.600
was submitted to George Lowe. We
ever gave him a brief end and he

97
00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.159
made the decisions, Okay, we're
going to go Rocket Dine. And then

98
00:08:54.799 --> 00:09:01.039
and when they started testing, their
engine was perfect. So that's how that's

99
00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:05.080
a big change change. Yeah,
it was. I mean it was close

100
00:09:05.279 --> 00:09:09.519
to the end, I mean to
the first lights of the lunar module,

101
00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:15.679
so it was it was a great
decision. We didn't have any problem with

102
00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:22.080
the s and none of the Engians
own Apollo lunar module had any problems.

103
00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:26.159
When we come back, General Duke
tells us about his roles in the historic

104
00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:31.200
Apollo eleven moon landing and the Apollo
thirteen crisis from the ground, and later

105
00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:35.000
he'll walk us through his own mission
to the Moon. I'm Greg Corumbus and

106
00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:41.440
this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our

107
00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:46.960
guest in this edition has retired US
Air Force Brigadier General Charlie Duke. He

108
00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:50.120
is one of just four living Americans
to have walked on the Moon. He

109
00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:54.399
did so as a crew member for
Apolo sixteen, but before that mission in

110
00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:58.840
nineteen seventy two, General Duke was
very involved on the ground with two other

111
00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:03.399
famous Apolo missions. He was on
the backup crew for the Apollo thirteen mission

112
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:09.679
and also served as capsule communicator or
CAPCOM for the historic Apollo eleven mission.

113
00:10:11.159 --> 00:10:15.600
And General Duke picks up his story
explaining what the capcom does and what it

114
00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:20.919
was like to have that role on
such a history making mission. Well still

115
00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:28.679
today, capcom is the only person
in mission control who can actually talk to

116
00:10:28.799 --> 00:10:35.320
the crew in flight, and so
it's always an I'm not sure now,

117
00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:41.440
but then it was always an astronaut, and that gave your familiarity. We

118
00:10:41.559 --> 00:10:46.759
all knew one another, gave your
familiarity, and you could talk in their

119
00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:54.799
length pilot language if you will,
and you relayed the information that was generated

120
00:10:54.840 --> 00:11:00.000
in mission control go no go,
and monitor this system, that system,

121
00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:05.360
whatever. And then you've transmitted that
up to this crew and they would respond,

122
00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:09.200
and so you had a conversation with
the crew, and everybody else in

123
00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:18.200
mission control was listening in and advising
the flight director on their systems, and

124
00:11:18.279 --> 00:11:24.200
so you basically were of the voice
of mission control. And it was a

125
00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:28.279
very important job. You had to
you had to say it right, and

126
00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:33.279
you had to say it and pilot
language, if you will. They really

127
00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:41.080
depended on you transmitting the information that
was correct and no mistakes. And so

128
00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:46.960
I did that on Apollo ten,
which first time we took the lunar module

129
00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:52.519
to the Moon but no landing.
And two months later we Apollo eleven,

130
00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:58.639
we landed. And since I'd done
that on Apollo ten, Neil Armstrong and

131
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.960
invited me to come do it on
Apollo eleven. Just keep that whole team

132
00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:09.000
together. We just moved from ten
to eleven, and we were well trained

133
00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:13.000
and except for the landing port,
we had done it all. So it

134
00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:18.480
was a tremendous opportunity for me,
a great thrill to be involved in that

135
00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:24.120
first landing, and I was just
really pleased that I was selected. And

136
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:28.559
so of course the whole world heard
jur communicating that the landing had taken place.

137
00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:33.879
What the world didn't know for a
long time was how close they were

138
00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:37.159
to running out of opportunity to make
the landing. Take us inside what it

139
00:12:37.200 --> 00:12:41.519
was like at mission control as we
were waiting to hear that they had landed.

140
00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:48.399
It was tense. That's an understatement. It was so tense. It

141
00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:52.080
was dead silence if nobody, I
mean, if if you weren't transmitting that

142
00:12:52.440 --> 00:13:00.639
information within the room. Everybody was
monitoring on their system, and we'd had

143
00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:05.399
a series of problems on the descent. At first, we had communication problems,

144
00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:09.360
and the mission rules us, if
you lose communications for thirty seconds,

145
00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:16.480
you aboard the mission. So we
were rearranging the spacecraft to the different antennas.

146
00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:22.519
Then we got computer overloads, which
was really, I thought, very

147
00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:28.080
serious. Without the computer you cannot
land. And so we were having these

148
00:13:28.080 --> 00:13:35.279
computer overloads, but the computer engineers
were saying, we're goal on these on

149
00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:41.399
these alarms light And then when we
got to seven thousand feet above the moon

150
00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:46.559
to lunar module, pitch us down. So the windows are air pointing at

151
00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:52.720
the lunar surface, and Neil apparently
looked out the window and says, we

152
00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:56.519
can't land. Here we had him
targeted into the wrong place. So he

153
00:13:56.679 --> 00:14:05.039
levels off at about five hundred eat
and he flies several miles horizontally across the

154
00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:09.360
moon, picked out a landing spot, stopped his forward the velocity, and

155
00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:16.080
then lower the lunar module. Now, well, that five miles at five

156
00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:20.120
hundred feet or whatever it was used
up all our reserves and the fuels.

157
00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:26.480
So now we got a minimum fuel
and we had a margin of four percent.

158
00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:31.279
When we got to four percent and
decent engine, we were going to

159
00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:39.679
a board. So the propulsion engineer
said flight sixty seconds. That means he

160
00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:43.679
had sixty seconds to get on the
on the ground. So I said eagle

161
00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:50.840
sixty seconds, and then I said
eagle thirty seconds. And he wasn't on

162
00:14:50.879 --> 00:14:56.000
the ground, but courting my stop
watch, and it was thirteen seconds later

163
00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:05.360
I heard buzzolder and say contact at
engine stop. And the tension was through

164
00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:09.919
the roof in mission control. In
fact, the tension in me was higher

165
00:15:09.919 --> 00:15:15.120
in mission control than it was when
I landed on the moon on Apoli sixteen.

166
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:22.000
People have different numbers, but in
my mind it was seventeen seconds left

167
00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:26.759
before we would have called Eagle aboard. So it was very close. What

168
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:30.440
was the atmosphere in mission control?
Once you knew there was a successful landing,

169
00:15:31.159 --> 00:15:37.600
we all erupted. It's like punction
a balloon. All the tension left

170
00:15:37.679 --> 00:15:43.159
and we were clapping and sharing and
then didn't last long because Gene Trance,

171
00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:46.039
the flight director, said get back
to work, do you guys make sure

172
00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:50.960
this thing is safe and we can
stay. So we had a series of

173
00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:54.120
stays, if you will, T
one, T two, T three as

174
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:58.679
it went on down, and we
made sure that the lunar moga was nothing

175
00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:03.200
to lead king and nothing broke all
of those things. So we finally got

176
00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:10.039
down to okay for the final stay, and we were okay for the rest

177
00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:15.840
of the twenty four hours on the
moon. Well, let's talk about Apollo

178
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:22.600
thirteen. You were on the backup
crew for Apolo thirteen and you went to

179
00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:26.960
visit a friend who had a child
with the German measles. Correct, Yeah,

180
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:30.360
and that kind of impacted the fate
of that mission. Explain how that

181
00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:34.600
led to one of the primary crew
members being removed. Well, I was

182
00:16:34.639 --> 00:16:41.840
on a backup crew for Apollo thirteen, as you said, and I forgot

183
00:16:41.919 --> 00:16:48.639
about ten days or so before the
flight I come down with the German measles.

184
00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:52.639
Well, I mean the doctors,
and I was stunned, and the

185
00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:56.559
doctors were stunned. Kids get the
measles. Well, my younger sons three

186
00:16:56.639 --> 00:17:00.960
years old, Well, he had
a friend, Paul House. Well,

187
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.640
Paul came down with the measles.
Then my son came down with the measles,

188
00:17:03.640 --> 00:17:07.400
and I came down with the measles. I hadn't never had the measles.

189
00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:12.359
They said, we got to test
everybody. I'd exposed everybody in training.

190
00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:21.119
So of the prime crew and backup
crew, everybody had had the measles

191
00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:26.000
except T. K. Mattingly and
Ken was supposed to go on that flight

192
00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:30.400
as the command module Pollen Well,
as I remember, there was a big,

193
00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:40.480
big fuss about from the doctors to
the operations guys. But the doctors

194
00:17:40.519 --> 00:17:45.519
decided that we need, really need
to take him off because he gets sick

195
00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:49.319
at the moon. With the German
measles, he could be really sick,

196
00:17:51.319 --> 00:17:55.960
and so he was. It was
decided to take him off. And this

197
00:17:56.039 --> 00:18:00.480
was about a week before liftoff,
if I recall correctly, and so they

198
00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:07.519
substituted Jack Swiger. The idea of
the backup crew was if somebody something happens

199
00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:10.920
to the prime crew, you take
him all off and the substitute the backup.

200
00:18:11.599 --> 00:18:15.279
But I was sick. I couldn't
go, So that was so it

201
00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:19.960
was decided one on one. So
Jack Swiger took his place, and Ken

202
00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:26.160
came back on the backup crew with
us. And so thats a testimony to

203
00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:33.119
the thoroughness of the and the similarity
of training. A guy could step into

204
00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:37.559
that job and in a week be
ready to fly with a cohesive crew,

205
00:18:37.720 --> 00:18:45.720
which is amazing. It's just hardly
done. And but they did, and

206
00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:51.799
Ken mannerally came back on our crew, and then fifty five hours later after

207
00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:56.559
liftoff, they had an explosion that
required the three of us as a backup

208
00:18:56.599 --> 00:19:03.119
crew to get the mission control and
we spent thirty five hours before we got

209
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:11.319
relieved to getting them the procedures to
get them back safely. It was very

210
00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:14.680
tense. I don't know how accurate
the movie is, you can tell me,

211
00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:18.480
but they depict you working with everything
that was known to be in the

212
00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:23.519
capsule to help solve the problem.
So talk about the accuracy of that and

213
00:19:23.880 --> 00:19:29.400
what you remember working on. Well, John and I mostly were in a

214
00:19:29.480 --> 00:19:36.160
simulator getting the procedures that they would
have to use the lunar module to get

215
00:19:36.160 --> 00:19:41.279
them back as the lifeboat to get
them back safely. They were fifty five

216
00:19:41.359 --> 00:19:45.240
hours out from Earth. They were
on our trajectory that if they spun around

217
00:19:45.240 --> 00:19:48.599
the Moon without doing anything, they
weren't coming back to Earth. They were

218
00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:53.319
on a non refree return. So
John Young and I were in the simulators

219
00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:00.920
doing the lunar module power up and
those procedures and the burn and all of

220
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:07.920
that, while Mattingly was in the
lunar the command module simulator. How are

221
00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:12.599
you going to shut this thing down
safely? And it had never been designed

222
00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:18.559
to shut down out in space,
so he was really busy with those procedures,

223
00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:23.400
and there were other astronauts involved also. But what was to me the

224
00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:29.880
critical part was that we've got a
machine now, the lunar module, which

225
00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:36.440
was designed for two guys for three
days. Now we got three guys for

226
00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:40.279
four days. How do you make
it all last? The oxygen, the

227
00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:48.480
water, the carbon dioxide filtration,
and so that's what you see in the

228
00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:52.000
movie. And it was good they
had. They did a good job with

229
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:56.559
the movie. I had a little
bit a problem with the way it seemed

230
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:02.680
to me that they were focused on
Jack Swiker wasn't really qualified, but he

231
00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:07.960
was highly qualified. And but that
was a little drama that they put in

232
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:12.400
that was not real. But we
enjoyed the movie. We saw the movie

233
00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:18.039
the first one time it was shown. They came to Houston and showed it

234
00:21:18.079 --> 00:21:22.599
to two hundred and fifty of us
who'd done it, and they said,

235
00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:27.359
now, this is a movie,
not a documentary. Tom Hanks said and

236
00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:32.200
said, we gave him a standing
ovation. We down deep. We liked

237
00:21:32.200 --> 00:21:33.720
it. I told him, I
said, Tom, I said, I

238
00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:37.720
knew height was coming out and I
was sitting on the edge of my seat.

239
00:21:38.319 --> 00:21:41.519
That's when you knew it was well
done. Yeah, it was well

240
00:21:41.559 --> 00:21:45.960
done. You talked about the cheer
when Apollo eleven touchdown, when Apollo thirteen

241
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:51.640
splashed down, What was that cheer? Like louder, I think it was

242
00:21:51.759 --> 00:21:56.799
really the tension was through entry.
You know, we didn't know the command

243
00:21:56.799 --> 00:22:02.480
module had been shut down. It
was now just houred up, and we

244
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:06.839
jettisoned a lunar module and we didn't
know what it was going to do when

245
00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.319
it came in, and it was
just a lot of unknowns and it was

246
00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:17.680
I think because of the command module
was so cold, soaked and so cold.

247
00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:26.279
It took a while to get through
that blackout period and Hello thirteen,

248
00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:32.720
Houston here and dead silence. But
then they finally came up and that that

249
00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:36.400
was a big cheer, and then
when it splashed down, it was a

250
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:41.599
tremendous relief. Retired US Air Force
General Charlie Duke, who played critical roles

251
00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:45.519
on the ground for both Apolo eleven
and Apolo thirteen. When we come back,

252
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:49.920
it's his turn to go to the
moon on Apolos sixteen. I'm Greg

253
00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:56.359
Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg

254
00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:02.000
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is ret hired US Air Force Brigadier General

255
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:06.240
Charlie Duke. In the previous segment, General Duke told us all about his

256
00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:11.440
work in connection with the Apollo eleven
and Apollo thirteen missions. In the spring

257
00:23:11.440 --> 00:23:15.079
of nineteen seventy two, it was
his turn to go to the moon aboard

258
00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:19.880
Apolo sixteen, and that's where General
Duke picks up his story. Well,

259
00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:26.319
the Apolo sixteen was the second of
the j missions. The first first three

260
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:32.359
landings on the Moon were twenty four
hour maximum stay on the lunar surface,

261
00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:37.119
but they wanted to do more science, they wanted to do more explorations,

262
00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:41.839
so they extended the stay of the
lunar module to three days on the lunar

263
00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:49.160
surface. So they gave us a
car and other experiments. So we were

264
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:55.440
the first and only, turned out
only mission to land in the lunar highlands.

265
00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:59.799
And if you look at where Neil
Armstrong landed versus where we landed was

266
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:07.319
eight or nine thousand feet altitude difference. So the idea was, these rocks

267
00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:11.119
are going to be different than what
they found on the mari and sure enough

268
00:24:11.160 --> 00:24:15.759
they were, but they weren't what
they expected. They expected two kind of

269
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:22.079
volcanic rocks, but there was hardly
any volcanic rocks up there on the Moon

270
00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:26.799
in that area. So all experiments, all of the use of the car,

271
00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:33.960
we were the second with the car, was designed to understand what the

272
00:24:34.039 --> 00:24:41.480
lunar highlands was composed of. And
so we worked very hard to to get

273
00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:47.480
the right samples and to deploy all
the experiments that we were to do,

274
00:24:47.759 --> 00:24:53.519
and and everything worked well except for
one experiment, the heat floor experiment,

275
00:24:56.200 --> 00:25:02.720
which required me to drill two holes
into the moon, but the electrical system

276
00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:07.519
was out, so we abandoned that. That that experiment that was but that

277
00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:14.720
was the only failure we had.
So it was a very scientific exploration of

278
00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:21.720
the lunar highlands was a whole quote
big objective of Apollo sixteen, and you

279
00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:25.920
were trained by geologists for what to
look for. Right. NASA saw the

280
00:25:25.960 --> 00:25:30.160
importance of teaching us geology. So
from the very first month that I reported

281
00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:34.200
into NASA, we started geology training. Nobody knew who was going to fly

282
00:25:34.359 --> 00:25:40.079
to the Moon, but everybody was
being trained in geology. So we had

283
00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:48.000
some of the world's experts in geology. The chief of our geology team was

284
00:25:48.079 --> 00:25:53.000
the head of the geology department University
of Texas. He became a good friend,

285
00:25:53.559 --> 00:26:00.720
and we had a number of scientists
that came from the Lunar Geology Institute

286
00:26:00.759 --> 00:26:06.920
and Flagstaff and other famous uh well
not famous in the world sense, but

287
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:12.599
famous in the geology world who were
training us. So we went on a

288
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:21.039
three day geology trip every month for
I think we did six months six years.

289
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:23.759
Uh As we started training. That
was one of the first things we

290
00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:29.880
started training in a geology and then
we as you got on a crew,

291
00:26:30.039 --> 00:26:37.640
you continued that training. And so
I probably had a master's degree in geology

292
00:26:37.720 --> 00:26:41.480
when I when I went to the
Moon, but no degree. But that's

293
00:26:41.480 --> 00:26:45.640
how much training I'd had. The
rocks were, as I said earlier,

294
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.720
the rocks were different than the geologists
had studied from a photo standpoint. Uh

295
00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:56.599
and uh. So we started describing
these rocks that were not what they thought

296
00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:00.640
they would be, and I think
we can fused them for a while and

297
00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:04.759
maybe they even thought, well,
we've wasted six years training on these dummies.

298
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:08.680
They not even telling us what's right. But then they got they caught

299
00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:15.119
on that this is really unique and
we hadn't seen any rocks like this,

300
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:22.400
so they got very excited about it. And then we modified our travers's some

301
00:27:22.759 --> 00:27:30.559
to make sure we got the widest
variety of the lunar Higland rocks that we

302
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:34.480
could find, and I think we
did a really good job. So they

303
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:38.079
were pleased when we got back way
back up just a little bit. And

304
00:27:38.680 --> 00:27:41.680
ask you about a couple of things
before you got to the moon. First

305
00:27:41.680 --> 00:27:44.960
of all, for most of us
who will never know what it's like,

306
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:52.440
describe blast off. Oh, okay, liftoff in the Saturn five was a

307
00:27:52.440 --> 00:28:00.519
tremendous experience. It wasn't loud.
The sound went sideways up to the spacecraft

308
00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:06.200
and we were up on the top
of a three hundred and sixty foot tall

309
00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:14.519
vehicle and the only thing I can
remember was a vibration. You got four

310
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:18.160
engines as five engines at the bottom
pushing with seven and a half million pounds

311
00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:25.319
of thrust, and the four on
the circumference they wiggle to control the trajectory,

312
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:30.920
and that wiggling down there comes through
this aluminum structure, shaking like sideways,

313
00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:34.680
taking your sideways from side to side, and we're strapped in real tight,

314
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:40.400
but you can feel the vibration and
if you look at it, it

315
00:28:40.440 --> 00:28:44.799
was a high frequency, not as
high a Space Shuttle, but really high

316
00:28:44.839 --> 00:28:49.000
frequency. And it was a good
amplitude. And to be honest, I

317
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:53.759
got a little nervous. I didn't
remember people telling me it was supposed to

318
00:28:53.759 --> 00:29:02.240
shake this hard, but I was
holding on and John Young was saying,

319
00:29:02.279 --> 00:29:07.279
we go. He'd flown the Saturn
before, and we'll go, and Mission

320
00:29:07.319 --> 00:29:11.119
control says, you go. And
for the first two minutes and forty one

321
00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:17.279
seconds was first stage on our flight. That vibration never stopped and it was

322
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:22.960
always the same, but not any
pogo, but just side to side.

323
00:29:22.279 --> 00:29:29.720
And that's really the only thing I
remember from the ascent was that vibration on

324
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:33.960
the first stage and about three and
a half minutes I have to lift off

325
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:38.480
where now in the second stage they
jettisoned the cover over the wooden windows and

326
00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:44.920
you can see outside for the first
time, and that was spectacular. There's

327
00:29:44.920 --> 00:29:51.200
a lantic ocean and then deep blue
and then the blue of the the atmosphere

328
00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:53.680
that fades into the white, and
then in the top of the window was

329
00:29:53.720 --> 00:30:02.319
the blackness of space. It was
life transforming. Really was incredible, and

330
00:30:02.799 --> 00:30:07.759
the G level wasn't so bad.
And I found out later that my excitement

331
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:12.680
on liftoff was one hundred and forty
four beats per second my heart as I

332
00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:18.400
was, I was really ready to
go. John Young his was seventy,

333
00:30:18.559 --> 00:30:23.240
so he was the cool one on
the flight. But that's the only thing

334
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:29.640
I can remember, is just a
vibration. Now we talked about the drama

335
00:30:29.720 --> 00:30:33.519
of the orbit and the landing on
Apollo eleven. You had your own challenges

336
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:37.640
in lunar orbit that threatened the potential
landing what was the problem and how did

337
00:30:37.720 --> 00:30:42.960
you resolve it. The problem occurred
about an hour before we were scheduled to

338
00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:47.079
land. We were on the backside
of the Moon, out of contact with

339
00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:52.640
Earth and the command module. We
ran a orbit that was sixty miles on

340
00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:57.799
the backside and seven miles on the
front side, so that we have the

341
00:30:57.880 --> 00:31:03.920
best landing chance. Well, he
had to change his orbit on the back

342
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:08.119
side to sixty miles circle so he'd
be in the right position when we if

343
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:12.440
we had to abort on decent,
well, he couldn't. The main engine

344
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:18.480
was out, and not the ignition
of the main engine, but the control

345
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:22.920
of the main engine. And when
he reported this, John Young made the

346
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:30.000
decision don't burn. And when he
said that we weren't going to land on

347
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:34.720
the next relf, well, I
mean, if you heart can sink to

348
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:41.000
the bottom of your boots and zero
gravity hours did and so we now the

349
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:47.160
landing's no goal. So we come
around the back and mission control they were

350
00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:55.759
shocked and and we were down,
and so John told they dumped all the

351
00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:57.720
data down and said, well,
we'll look at it. Well, we

352
00:31:57.759 --> 00:32:06.200
went around the side, came around
again, and now we're coming around to

353
00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:12.839
be four hours behind schedule, and
the moon is slowly rotating out from under

354
00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:17.799
us, and so if we get
a go, we gotta go over fly

355
00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:23.359
Cross range. They said, we're
working on it. So we disappeared around

356
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:28.920
the back and came around the front
and they said, we can't fix it,

357
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:31.960
but we know what's wrong and this
is your work around. So they

358
00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:39.079
gave Ken a procedure and he said, your goal for a burn on the

359
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:44.240
next rev. And then right before
we went lost a signal, they said

360
00:32:44.279 --> 00:32:49.319
you're going for landing, and boy
did our hearts eureka, you know,

361
00:32:49.400 --> 00:32:53.519
I mean, I can't explain the
excitement we got. So we would go

362
00:32:53.640 --> 00:33:00.279
for landing, and it was the
last rev that we could make our aning

363
00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:05.240
site. So six hours behind schedule, we started our decent Manningly's burn went

364
00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:12.680
well and so we didn't worry about
that problem anymore, and we started down

365
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:16.640
and made a successful landing, probably
within two hundred yards of where we intended

366
00:33:16.680 --> 00:33:22.720
to land. So John did a
great job. You mentioned the amazing samples

367
00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:27.720
that you were able to find,
different perhaps than what was originally expected.

368
00:33:27.759 --> 00:33:31.279
But how did you know when you
had everything you needed to bring home?

369
00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:36.519
Well, we just picked up I
tease everybody, we just picked up one

370
00:33:36.519 --> 00:33:40.279
of every color, and that's not
true. But you you you could tell

371
00:33:40.759 --> 00:33:46.720
the difference in some of the rocks. And we had objectives to pick up

372
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:52.240
not only rocks, but to pick
up soil samples. And everywhere we stopped

373
00:33:52.680 --> 00:33:58.720
it was it was get get a
rock from here, get a soil sample

374
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:01.119
from here, and which you were
picked up a rock, you just you

375
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:05.440
just looked at it, and uh, you could tell it was brech You're

376
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:10.320
mostly brecheous, which are fragments of
rock in a matrix, and the matrix

377
00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:16.119
had crystals very minute. Uh,
but you could see it. And so

378
00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:22.760
we were picking up what not only
what they told us, but also what

379
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:27.280
we saw and described. And with
all of the other samples that we were

380
00:34:27.320 --> 00:34:30.679
collecting, we got a great suite
of rocks from the lunar Hollis and were

381
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:35.760
Signis were very pleased when we got
back. Now you're obviously very busy with

382
00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:38.440
that work, but there had to
be points where you're just stopping for a

383
00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:43.320
moment, thinking, I am on
the moon. Well that happened right away

384
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:45.079
after we landed. You know,
we were him on the moon. I'm

385
00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:51.079
on the moon, and you couldn't. You couldn't, could hardly believe it

386
00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:54.599
because we were six hours late.
Now we're here and man and lunar modules

387
00:34:54.679 --> 00:34:59.679
working great, and we're going to
pen seventy two hours on the surface and

388
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:07.000
uh, so we were very excited
about it. And uh they changed the

389
00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:12.039
flight plan on us, and so
instead of going outside for the first excursion,

390
00:35:12.639 --> 00:35:15.639
we took off our suits and they
said, go to sleep for eight

391
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:19.480
hours. Well I was a little
hard. You know, four five hours

392
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:22.880
after you landed on the moon,
somebody says go to sleep. Well,

393
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:25.880
uh, that didn't work very well. But I finally got about four hours

394
00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:31.599
sleep after taking a sleeping pill,
and so we got out and uh,

395
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:37.079
and that then it really hit me. I'm on the moon. I'm on

396
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:43.599
the moon. And the excitement,
the wonder, the thrilled, the adventure

397
00:35:45.360 --> 00:35:51.280
of it all, and it's buzzolder
described. It was this magnificent desolation,

398
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.039
and you kept thinking, nobody's ever
been here before, my first that my

399
00:35:57.159 --> 00:36:00.960
footstep is the first time it's been
a footstep in that spot. And so

400
00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:07.840
that wander never left. Everywhere you
went you saw something different. You sold

401
00:36:09.159 --> 00:36:16.239
detail the photographs that we had studied
of our landing site only had resolution to

402
00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:21.719
forty five feet, so ob PUCs
less than forty five feet you couldn't see

403
00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:24.840
in these photographs, but when you
got there, you could see little tiny

404
00:36:24.840 --> 00:36:29.000
pebbles, and so there were a
lot of craters, there were a lot

405
00:36:29.079 --> 00:36:32.199
of boulders. There were a lot
of things like that scattered around our landing

406
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:36.880
site that we didn't even know we're
there. And it was a lot more

407
00:36:37.400 --> 00:36:45.039
rolling and rougher train because the car
was bouncing through these little craters and over

408
00:36:45.119 --> 00:36:50.920
these little rocks and stuff like that. So it was three days of wonder,

409
00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:53.000
if you will, an excitement.
I assume you already know this,

410
00:36:53.199 --> 00:36:59.039
but you know that every little kid
watched you guys drive around the moon those

411
00:36:59.079 --> 00:37:02.400
moon cars and wanted to be you. Right. Yeah, Well John drove,

412
00:37:02.559 --> 00:37:07.159
he had to really focus on the
area ahead of him. I was

413
00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:14.719
the navigator and a travel guide,
if you will, because without a without

414
00:37:14.760 --> 00:37:17.719
a as you bounce across the moon
driving Dan Tona's going like this, so

415
00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:24.119
you don't have any TV. And
so I'm describing the what we're seeing so

416
00:37:24.519 --> 00:37:29.880
well, only right Houston, I
and every fifty meters I'd take a picture

417
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:34.400
and I see this there, and
I see that, and so I'm navigating

418
00:37:34.480 --> 00:37:38.119
for John, and he's taking my
instructions and getting us down to Point A

419
00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:45.320
or plump Crater or whatever we were
going to. And U so I just

420
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:51.559
kept talking. It was fascinating terrain
that we were going by, and I

421
00:37:51.599 --> 00:37:55.440
wanted them to understand just from the
pictures and for what I was describing.

422
00:37:58.079 --> 00:38:02.679
You tend to overestimate the number of
rocks on the surface. You know,

423
00:38:02.760 --> 00:38:07.639
you were saying forty, but you
look back later and you count the rocks

424
00:38:07.639 --> 00:38:12.239
and it wasn't nearly that high.
But I mean, that's the excitement that

425
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:20.800
comes in and the enthusiasm and the
extravagance. I guess a few potholes along

426
00:38:20.840 --> 00:38:23.079
the way, Yeah, yeah,
we did. We got lost a lost

427
00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:28.559
staring. We lost a fender on
the backside, on the back of the

428
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:31.880
rover. That turned out to be
a real problem because the moon dust is

429
00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:38.760
very very fine, like powder,
and so as the wheels, the fenders

430
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:44.800
blocked the dust from flying up over
you. But without a fender, the

431
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:47.519
dust would from the right rear fender
would come down and rain down on us,

432
00:38:47.559 --> 00:38:52.760
and our suits got filthy and you
couldn't brush it. Off the lunar

433
00:38:52.840 --> 00:39:00.440
dust which just get into the fabric, and it turned out to be a

434
00:39:00.559 --> 00:39:06.039
real problem for some of the equipment
we had on the rover, but the

435
00:39:06.239 --> 00:39:09.400
connectors were We were worried about our
connectors. But we when we took off

436
00:39:09.440 --> 00:39:15.400
our suits and started refreshing the suits
for the next DVA, we could clean

437
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:20.400
that real well. You just couldn't
brush the dust off the suit. Just

438
00:39:20.440 --> 00:39:22.599
a couple of minutes left in our
time together, sir, you left a

439
00:39:22.599 --> 00:39:27.199
couple of things behind on the moon? Ye? What those were? And

440
00:39:27.239 --> 00:39:35.559
why? I left two objects onto
the Moon that were personal and nineteen seventy

441
00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:39.480
two was the twenty fifth anniversary the
United States Air Force. It was formed

442
00:39:39.480 --> 00:39:45.159
in nineteen forty seven. I was
the only astronaut Air Force officer going to

443
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:50.360
the Moon that year. So I
had this idea, let's say, happy

444
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:58.079
birthday Air Force or happy anniversary,
and so I got in contact with the

445
00:39:58.159 --> 00:40:02.840
Pentagon in some way. I don't
remember how I did it, but anyway,

446
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:07.039
the Air Force said that's a good
idea. So they minted two special

447
00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:14.840
coins about the size of a silver
dollar that commemorated the twenty fifth anniversary of

448
00:40:14.840 --> 00:40:19.119
the Air Force and I left one
on the moon. I dropped one on

449
00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:22.159
the moon and took a picture of
that. Another one I brought back.

450
00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:27.199
It's now on display at the Air
Force Museum and right Patterson Air Force Base,

451
00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:32.880
Ohio. And the other was an
idea that I had to include my

452
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:39.599
family, and we tried. We
trained in Florida, but families all lived

453
00:40:39.639 --> 00:40:44.360
in Houston, so we were gone
a lot. So to get my kids

454
00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:47.960
excited about what dad was doing,
I said, boys, y'all want to

455
00:40:47.960 --> 00:40:51.199
go to the Moon with me?
Yeah, Dad, that'd be great.

456
00:40:51.320 --> 00:40:54.760
And so I said, well,
of course you can't really join me on

457
00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:59.679
the spacecraft, but let's take a
picture of our family. So I had

458
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:06.079
a little snapshot of my family and
got permission to take it and leave it

459
00:41:06.119 --> 00:41:09.800
on the moon. And so the
last thing I did was to take this

460
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:15.119
picture out of my pocket and drop
it on the Moon, and took a

461
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:20.599
picture of the picture, and it's
still there. Sall burn up now after

462
00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:24.320
fifty something years. The temperature on
the Moon when I dropped that picture was

463
00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:30.079
probably about two hundred degrees fahrenheit,
so it was getting hot on the moon.

464
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:35.320
The higher the sun gets, the
hotter the surface gets, and you

465
00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:38.039
can't feel that in your space suit, but you can see the effect of

466
00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:44.159
it when you drop a plastic picture
and it starts to curl up almost instantly.

467
00:41:45.320 --> 00:41:50.079
So those are the two things I
did. And then we ended up

468
00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:58.760
with the Moon Olympics. We decided
to do the Moon Olympics, and and

469
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:00.360
we're going to do the high jump, and then we're going to do the

470
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:05.920
broad jump. And down here with
all my equipment on, I weighed three

471
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:10.960
hundred and sixty three pounds up on
the Moon sixty pounds, and so I

472
00:42:12.039 --> 00:42:15.920
was in shape then and I could
start bouncing and John was bouncing. So

473
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:20.039
when I bounced and I said,
here we go, and I straightened up,

474
00:42:20.119 --> 00:42:23.079
Well, the secret center gravity went
backwards and over I went backwards,

475
00:42:23.679 --> 00:42:28.239
and that life supports. If I
hit on that life support system and it

476
00:42:28.280 --> 00:42:32.840
breaks, I'm dead like that,
So do something. And I had the

477
00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:37.679
thought roll right. So I roll
right, and I broke my fall on

478
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:43.400
my right side and my right hand
and right leg and my heart. I

479
00:42:43.639 --> 00:42:46.320
landed on my back and so there's
the earth out there and I'm flat on

480
00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:51.719
my back and John runs over and
says, that wasn't very smart. Charlie,

481
00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:55.920
and I helped me up, John, and but I'm still alive.

482
00:42:57.519 --> 00:43:04.039
And I had a pressure game and
it said normal. We had a remote

483
00:43:04.039 --> 00:43:07.719
control united up here on our suit
and the oxygen supply everything was normal.

484
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:12.880
So he helped me up and and
but my heart was pounding, I tell

485
00:43:12.920 --> 00:43:17.039
you, and uh so at then
I looked up and a TV camera was

486
00:43:17.119 --> 00:43:22.840
looking right at me, and uh
mission control had seemed us stupid stunt,

487
00:43:23.079 --> 00:43:29.599
and uh so that ended the Moon
Olympics. I have to say they were

488
00:43:29.840 --> 00:43:35.760
very upset. And uh so we
got back inside. John parked the car

489
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:38.079
and we got back inside. Two
hours later we left. Final question,

490
00:43:38.159 --> 00:43:43.559
Sarah, real quick. When you
look back at your role throughout the Apollo

491
00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:45.840
program, but also just the opportunity
to be on the moon, what are

492
00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:52.719
you most proud of? Two?
I think two events. One was,

493
00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:58.800
of course landing on the Moon,
being honored being one of twelve that walked

494
00:43:58.800 --> 00:44:02.840
on the Moon, and that had
to be the tops of paulo career.

495
00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:12.079
But the second was helping land Lunar
Module eleven Neil Armstrong Paulo eleven on the

496
00:44:12.159 --> 00:44:16.760
moon with boz Aldron. That was
a great thrill, a great honor for

497
00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:21.760
me. Well, sir, It's
an incredible legacy and it's been a true

498
00:44:21.800 --> 00:44:23.159
honor to speak with you today.
Thank you so much for being with us

499
00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:28.440
my pleasure service. Thank you very
much. Charlie Duke, retired US Air

500
00:44:28.480 --> 00:44:32.320
Force Brigadier general, also a capcom
for Apollo ten and Apollo eleven, and

501
00:44:32.400 --> 00:44:37.360
he also served as the lunar module
pilot for the Apollo sixteen mission to the

502
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:42.079
Moon in April of nineteen seventy two. I'm Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans

503
00:44:42.159 --> 00:44:54.239
Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg
Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans

504
00:44:54.320 --> 00:44:59.719
Chronicles, a presentation of the American
Veterans Center. For more information, please

505
00:44:59.800 --> 00:45:04.880
visit American Veterans Center dot org.
You can also follow the American Veterans Center

506
00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:09.199
on Facebook and on Twitter. We're
at AVC update. Subscribe to the American

507
00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:14.719
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral
histories and special features, and of course,

508
00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:19.719
please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles podcast
wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks

509
00:45:19.760 --> 00:45:22.320
again for listening, and please join
us next time for Veterans Chronicles