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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbits. Our guest in this edition is

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Russell Rusty Schweickart. Captain Schweickart is
a US Air Force veteran and a veteran

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of the Massachusetts National Guard, serving
as a fighter pilot. He also served

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as the lunar module pilot on the
Apollo nine mission, a mission that was

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critically important in preparation for the moon
landing that would come just a few months

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later. And Captain Shwyckart, thank
you very much for being with us,

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Sir, welcome. Where were you
born and raised there in New Jersey?

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I was born in a place called
Neptune, New Jersey, on the shore

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on the Jersey Shore, and lived
in a little fact, it wasn't even

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a town. I just lived in
a area called Bailey's Corner, dirt road,

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that kind of thing when I was
born and raised. Was there a

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history of military service in your family. My father had been in the army

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at some point, I think in
World War Two. I don't think he

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was I don't know if he was
drafted or joined frankly, but he was

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in for just a relatively short time. I think in the signal Corps or

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something like that. He didn't serve
in any war to my knowledge. Why

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did you decide to join the Air
Force? Well, I mean I as

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a kid, I'd always been fascinated
by airplanes. Where we lived in New

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Jersey on a farm. We were
very near Lakehurst Naval Air Station. And

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this was you know, basically when
I was a young guy growing up,

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a young kid boy in those days, it was gender specific. You know.

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There were generally Navy fighter planes,
but all kinds of fighter planes at

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the beginning of World War Two,
so they were dog fighting, you know,

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over the farm all the time.
I mean, so I saw all

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kinds of airplanes dog fighting from the
time I was probably five or six years

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old until World War Two ended in
forty five or so. You were fascinated

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pretty area. Oh yeah, I
knew all the airplanes. You know.

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What were you flying when you joined? Well, I mean training was in

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my era was T thirty four,
I guess, and then the T twenty

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eight. Then from T twenty eight
I went into jet training with the T

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thirty three. Out of basic training, I went from there into the F

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eighty six Williams Air Force Base in
Arizona. We had F eighty six f's

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for training and then on active duty. Well, the last part of training

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was in the F one hundred A
at that time, and I went on

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in active duty to fire Squadron in
the Philippine Islands and we were flying F

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one hundreds, F one hundred d's
and the two seater the F as well.

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And then in the Air Guard,
I went back to a really good

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airplane, which was the F eighty
six h best airplane fireplane built. What

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sort of assignments did you have or
deployments of any kind? Well, out

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of the Philippine Island was stationed at
Clark Field in the Philippine Islands, and

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we had the F eighty six,
I mean, the F one hundred D

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was a nuclear capable. We carried
nukes. Was our mission fighter bomber type

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work, and we stood alert not
down in the Philippines, but our squadron

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would deploy up to Taiwan. We
had a couple of different bases up there,

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but in general we stood nuclear alert
tainan Air base on Taiwan, and

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that was you know, we would
typically be there for each of the sub

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units out of the squadron would be
up that would deploy up there like one

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week out of every four or something
like that. Three weeks out of every

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four we'd be back home at Clark, but we would deploy up there and

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the planes would be sitting there at
the end of the runway, and we'd,

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you know, every other every third
or fourth day, we'd have a

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day off in town, but most
of the time we were sleeping out at

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the end of the runway waiting for
the you know, the whistle to blow

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and the code words to come down
the telephone, and off we'd go and

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you know, bomb somebody. How
did you get the opportunity to pursue astronaut

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training? How did that opportunity present
itself to you or how did you pursue

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it? Well? After I finished
my active duty in the Air Force in

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nineteen sixty, I went back to
graduate school at MIT, but in order

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to make enough money to keep the
family going, I also enlisted in the

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Mass Air Guard, and so I
was flying fighter planes even though I was

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out of the air active duty Air
Force. And I had always been interested

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in aircraft, as I had already
mentioned. And anytime you're a fighter pilot,

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I mean, you want to go
faster, and you want to go

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higher, you go faster, and
you go higher. Eventually you get into

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space. Right. And of course
again my education was aeronautical engineering in undergraduate

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but when I got out of the
Air Force and went back to graduate school

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at MIT, by that time the
department had shifted to the Department of Aeronautics

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and Astronautics because we had launched the
first satellites and the first humans actually while

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I was active duty in the Air
Force, and so it was very natural

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that I my my interest and I
hadn't mentioned yet, but I'd also been

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interested not only in the sort of
engineering and physical part of being a fighter

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pilot, but also in astronomy,
and so you know, again becoming an

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astronomical object myself was a natural inclination. And when a president says he wants

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to get to the Moon in the
next decade, that that was a clarion

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call. When Kennedy, you know, made the announcement of the demand Space

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program and the goal of getting to
the Moon, I mean, that was

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that was a major charge in my
life and a commitment that you know,

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I was joined by other people,
but that was a very serious commitment that

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dealt not only with my ambition but
also with a fundamental goal of the nation,

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largely out of having been embarrassed by
the Soviet Union getting into space first.

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So what criteria were they looking for? How did they select the best

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of the best from the people they
brought in for training. Well, you

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know, the whole selection process has
morphed over the years. In the early

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days, and we were in the
third group, the third selection of astronauts

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that was made in nineteen well at
the end of sixty two, in the

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beginning of sixty three. And in
that third selection you became an astronaut.

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Later on you became an astronaut candidate, and you went through a sort of

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filtering process inside an ascad before you
became an actual astronaut. But in the

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early days, if you were selected, you were an astronaut. You were

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going to fly. It was only
a matter of how soon mission and that

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kind of thing. So again,
while flying both on weekends when I was

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in graduate school, but also our
guard outfit was activated when the Berlin Wall

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went up by President Kennedy, and
so all of the over both the graduate

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work and when I was flying in
Europe on active duty from the recall.

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That was the same period that Alan
Shephard flew. The Mercury guys were selected

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while I was in active duty,
first the first time before I came back

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to graduate school, but then after
I came back to graduate school, Shepherd

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flew. The Mercury program was moving
along, and when I was deployed to

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Europe in the Airguard the second time
on active duty, John Glenn had flown.

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I was tracking all of that,
of course, and it was a

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question how can I get to be
one? And it was actually John Glenn's

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flight, and I was reading about
it the morning after he flew at the

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base cafeteria while drinking my morning coffee
and reading the article, I sort of

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went off, I think, subconsciously, just putting myself in his place and

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the description that was being given of
his experience, and I sort of came

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too at some point and realized my
coffee was cold, and I didn't know

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how long I had been off kind
of doing this, but I thought,

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Wow, that was an interesting experience. If I really care about it that

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much, I should commit to it. I do care about it that much,

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I'm going to be one. And
that was literally the first time in

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my life when I had decided I
really want to do something. Up until

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a time, it was sort of
whatever looks most interesting at the moment,

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you know, And that's how he
got to mit and why I went into

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aeronautics and astronautics. But that was
the moment when I said I want to

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do this, and so from that
moment on I was in graduate school,

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of course, and getting my master's
degree in aeronautics astronautics at that time,

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and that became a goal. In
nineteen probably nineteen sixty two, well when

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John Glenn flew. That's US Air
Force veteran turned NASA astronaut Rusty Schweikert,

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the Lunar Module commander on Apollo nine, which was a critical mission, setting

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the stage for the Apollo eleven moon
landing just a few months later. Still

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a haad, Schweikert takes us through
his historic mission, but up next we'll

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learn more about his training and how
the shocking deaths of the Apollo one crew

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impacted the space program. I'm Greg
Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles. This

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is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest this week is US Air

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Force and Massachusetts Air National Guard veteran
Rusty Schweikert. He later became a NASA

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astronaut, serving as Lunar Module Commander
on Apollo nine. Up next, we'll

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discuss the training Schweikert went through as
part of the Apollo program, and then

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he takes us into the tragic loss
of three American heroes in the Apollo one

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disaster. Well, when, again, these things have morphed a bit over

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time, but at that time when
we went in, all of us came

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from many different backgrounds. Some of
us were in science and in educating you

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had advanced degrees in the science or
whatever. Other people came from the test

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pilot school or things of that kind, so that there was a mix of

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backgrounds. And the first thing that
NASA did was to conduct a kind of

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basic training which essentially mainly academic,
but not entirely, which brought all of

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these people to a common goal.
So that even though the guys who were

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test pilots didn't become the equivalent of
a master's degree or a PhD if they

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were graduate school somewhere, Nor did
my experience in graduate school suddenly make me

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the training at NASA make me a
test pilot. Nevertheless, it brought us

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all to a sort of basic minimum
level of common experience and education. We

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all also went through survival training at
that time. That was another part of

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the initial training that lasted for probably
half a year to three quarters of a

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year after we were selected as astronauts. And after that basic training period,

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each of us took some kind of
a specialty, some people the spacesuit,

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other people controls and displays it would
be in our future spacecraft. In my

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case, one of the first things
I did again coming out of MIT,

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and in particular the laboratory I worked
in was related to the MIT at that

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time Instrumentation Lab, later in the
Draper Lab, which developed the whole guidance

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and navigation system for the Lunar module
and the Apollo Command module. And so

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because of my background at MIT,
my assignment, one of my assignments at

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that time was guidance and the guidance
and navigation systems for Apollo. So each

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of us had a different type of
background or specialty that we oversaw. But

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that was one of the things I
did. Right after the basic training.

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You were part of the backup crew
for Apollo one, which of course ended

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tragically in January of nineteen sixty seven. Gus Grissom, Roger chafe and Ed

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White lost their lives. What can
you tell us about that day and what

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that was like to be so near
that. There was a great deal of

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fluidity in the program and our crew, which was Jim mcdibbott, Dave Scott,

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and myself were identified as a crew
and we were initially assigned as the

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backup crew for the first Apollo mission, the first man to Pollo mission,

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and the crew for that mission was
of course Gus Grissom, Ed White and

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Roger Chaffee, and we were all
friends. We lived near each other,

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you know, in the Houston area, and that was that was great,

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and it was the first time when
Gus and I really got to like one

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another. He'd seen me as kind
of of a nerd, you know,

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up until that time, and Gus
was an interesting, rather gruff sort of

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guy. But Gus and I got
to be great friends at the time,

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and we worked very closely with them. But we were also seen sort of

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as the first crew that would probably
fly the lunar module. We were back

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up to the first crew, but
it was sort of understood that we would

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have the first lunar module mission then
because of various changes that are too complex

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to go into. It turned out
that the second the guys who were going

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to fly the second mission, which
is Wally Sharrah and his crew, became

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the backup crew to the first mission, and Jim mcdivott our crew moved to

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the third flight, which was going
to be the first flight of the lunar

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module. And so that's how so
we actually made that shift away from being

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the backup crew for the first flight
to being the prime crew on the third

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mission. Probably you'd have to look
it up, probably four months before the

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fire on the pad that ended up
killing the Gussen and his crew. So

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we were on our own, had
our own mission at that time. We

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were the prime crew on the third
mission. And I can remember I was

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literally in Los Angeles doing some work
with Rockwell or what was North American Aviation

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became Rockwell, the prime contractor on
the Command module, and I was literally

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driving south on Sepulvita Boulevard for those
who are familiar with the La area,

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right before it goes under the runways
at LAX and I was driving my little

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car. I don't know, it's
headed toward the hotel or something, but

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I can remember hearing on the radio
that this big announcement that the first Apollo

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crew had been killed in a fire
on the pad at Cape Kennedy, and

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I can remember the shock of hearing
that, and just before I went underneath

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the runways, I pulled off to
the right on Supulvita Boulevard and I just

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sat there with my hands on the
steering wheel, listening to the radio and

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being totally in shock. I think
I probably sat there for half an hour

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before I could put the car back
in gear and continue with the day.

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I mean, it was an incredible
and instantaneous shock that I heard being announced

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to the public. What kind of
shock waves did that send through the Apollo

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system? And then did it kind
of make you not reassess what you wanted

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to do, but think differently about
what you're about to do. I think

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my response, and I perhaps we
always think everybody's response is like our own,

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but I think the primary response that
most of the guys had was my

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God, How could we not have
anticipated that tragedy. I mean, the

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design of the command module hatch at
that time was such that we call it

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the Block one command module. There
was going to be a Block two.

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We all knew that it had different
character characteristics, and the design difference between

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the Block one and Block two in
terms of the command module hatch was that

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because you have a you know,
when you're in space with a vacuum outside,

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you want the pressure of the inside
to spacecraft to help hold the hatch

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clothes, and so logically the design
was such that there was an outer hatch

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and an inner hatch, and that
inner hatch was held against the seal around

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the open hatch by the pressure inside
the spacecraft. It was sort of a

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safeguard actually seen as a safety feature, so that to open up the hatch

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you had to pull in the inner
hatch first and then open up the outer

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hatch outward. But the terrible reality
was that on the on the pad during

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the testing, which was of course
going on on Apollo one at the time,

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because of a fire inside started inside, the pressure went up and that

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held that inner hatch close and the
guys couldn't open it. So this safety

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feature actually killed the guys, you
know, And and the question came up,

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how could we not have understood that
that was a possibility, you know,

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And with the enriched atmosphere one hundred
percent during the test that we needed

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one hundred percent in flight, So
you know, you tested one hundred percent

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one hundred percent oxygen and a hatch
that was held against the seal and you

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couldn't pull that in that that was
a killer, And it was just a

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shock to realize that we had not
understood and understood the terrible consequence of a

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simple any kind of a fire,
anything that would raise the pressure inside of

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the spacecraft during testing. So that
was the main thing. Of course.

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The next thing was, my god, here we are. I guess that

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was what sixty eight coming right up
on the on the end of the decade,

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and Kennedy's commitment to get to the
moon and return person from the Moon

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by the end of the decade was
racing up on us. And the question

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is, my god, are we
going to miss that goal because of this?

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Or can we get this repaired and
fixed and redesigned and move on with

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it and still meet that goal.
So that was the second issue. But

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the shock of those three guys being
killed by that design and not really having

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paid proper attention to safety was a
real shock to everybody, and not just

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to us as the crew. It
didn't change anybody's sense I mean, you

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know, when you're a fighter,
pilot or survey anywhere in the military,

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you know you can die. That's
what the military is air for. The

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military is there to defend the country. That means against enemies who are trying

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to kill you. Right, you're
going to trying to kill them, that's

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the deal. And even without enemies
killing you, you know, airplanes crash,

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you're doing eye performance stuff, which
is fundamentally risky by as basic nature.

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It's part of the deal. We
accept it. The public, you

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know, they might expect people in
the military to die, but people didn't

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necessarily think about people in the space
program dying. We did. It was

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part of what you you know,
that was the probability. It was a

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matter of probabilities. So it didn't
affect anybody's sense of wanting to be there

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or that kind of thing. I
can't say that in any absolute way.

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As a matter of fact, I
can tell we don't need to talk about

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it. But I can think of
one circumstance where I think one of the

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guys did end up rethinking his presence
in the program partly as a result of

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that. But that was an exception. By and large. The main thinking

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after the shock of the accident,
per se was over. The main issue

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was we got to meet that goal
nineteen seventy Kennedy's commitment, and everybody just

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put their shoulder to the wheel and
worked that much harder. When we come

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back, Captain Rusty Schweikert takes us
along on Apollo nine, his testing of

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the lunar module and much more,
including his powerful moment looking back at the

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Earth. I'm Greg Corumbus, and
this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans

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Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our
guest this week is US Air Force and

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Massachusetts Air National Guard veteran Rusty Schweikert. He then became a NASA astronaut and

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served as Lunar Module commander on the
Apollo nine mission, just months before the

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historic moonlanding with Apollo eleven. Now
it's time for the mission, as Captain

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Schweikert walks us through his time and
space as part of Apollo nine. Well,

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the primary purpose of the mission really
was that it was the initial flight

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of the lunar module. We would
fly it in Earth orbit because for the

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first test flight you want to check
out as much as you can, but

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you don't want to do unnecessary risks, so you don't want to do the

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first flight out at the Moon.
So the mission was designed to fly ten

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days in Earth orbit and we would
test everything about the lunar module that could

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be tested in Earth orbit. But
there were a few things like, for

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example, the most obvious thing the
landing radar. For example, you couldn't

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test that flying in orbit around the
Earth. So there were some things that

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were left for an initial checkout on
Apollo ten before the first planned landing on

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Apollo eleven. But everything about the
fundamental characteristics of the spacecraft itself, maneuvering

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all the engine, everything, ninety
percent of the functionality of the lunar module

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could be tested in Earth orbit and
that was the primary set of objectives.

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But right behind that was the fact
that the guys would be going out on

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the surface of the Moon collecting rocks
and whatnot, and so we had The

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Apollo suit was different from the earlier
Gemini suits, Thank Heaven, because a

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Gemini suit was really terrible and it
created a lot of problems with the EVA

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actra hicul or activity. But the
Apollo suit was a new design which enabled

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you to through convolutes at the major
joints, the knees and the shoulders and

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the elbows, far more maneuverable suit. And I was the first one to

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do an EVA using the new Apollo
suit, and that was a secondary objective,

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but it was right behind the primary
objective of the tests, testing and

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validation of the lunar module itself.
So that was that was a great privilege

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for me to be, you know, testing both of them. Let's talk

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about each of those briefly in terms
of the module. How did it perform

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and what if any tweaks were necessary? Well, it performed very very well.

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I'm just trying to think, as
you're asking the question, whether there

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were any tweaks in the sense of
anything going wrong during our mission that was

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corrected for Pollow ten or for that
matter of Pollow eleven. I mean,

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certainly, the software that we had
within the Apollo guidance computer and the backup

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computers was did not contain all of
the lunar landing software. So we had

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an earlier version of the software where
but that was not corrections from problems that

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we had. It was simply the
evolution which would enable you to in fact

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add landing on the surface to what
could be done. I don't think anything

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that we learned change anything we planned. I think every pretty much everything that

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we did on Apollo nine validated what
we were planning and training for on the

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subsequent landing missions. There are some
things people might be interested in. I

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don't know how much you want to
go off into things of this kind,

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but for example, in the rendezvous, the whole set of sequential procedures that

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you take in a rendezvous, and
that's true whether you're rendezvousing around the Earth

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or whether you're rendezvousting with something around
the Moon, And of course that's what

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you're doing when you come up off
the Moon, you know, the command

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module was still an orbit and you've
got a rendezvous with it to get in

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come back home with a heat shield, you know. But a fundamental difference

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is that you're doing these same maneuvers
in a sense, at the same place,

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if you will, around an orbit
or several orbits. So the geometry

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is the same in a way where
you're making these different maneuvers. But around

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the Earth it takes you ninety minutes
to go around, whereas around the Moon

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it takes you two hours to go
around all right. So the fact of

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the matter is that these things that
you have to do come closer together around

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the Earth than around the Moon.
And in addition to that, let me

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say that when you're simulating these things
that you have to do on the ground

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in training, those nasty guys out
there on the control panel are making things

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fail all the time. And so
you're flying a rendezvous or a landing for

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that matter, but we're mainly doing
rendezvous. So you're flying a rendezvous in

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docking, and things are going wrong
all the time. So anytime in training

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that you're flying a rendezvous, not
only are they happening faster around the Earth

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in our mission than they would around
the moon. Okay, but everything's going

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wrong. So here we are.
You're always fighting, you know, the

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loss of this valve or that engine
or whatever. And you go through this

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training and you can almost always make
a successful rendezvous and docking, you know,

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in spite of everything going wrong.
So there mcdivott and I are flying

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in Apollo nine and we're into rendezvous, you know, after doing our maneuver

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going back one hundred miles in order
and then coming into rendezvous as if we

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came up off the Moon simulating that, and we're part way through the rendezvous

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and we're sort of standing there side
by side. Jim's over here, and

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we're kind of looking at each other
and saying, why do we have all

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this time? And the answer is
because nobody's making things fail, you know,

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And so we're having and then the
guys going around the Moon doing the

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rendezvous or they have even more time
to do it because it takes two hours

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for an orbit instead of an hour
and a half. So it was really

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funny to think about these things,
the difference between training and the reality.

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The reality was almost always easier than
the training, and which is the way

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it should be, right, That's
exactly the way you want to Yes,

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So and let's talk about the spacewalk
for a moment of the testing of the

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space As you already mentioned, I've
also read how you were kind of mesmerized

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for a bit while you're out there
looking back at the Earth. Talk about

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that moment a little bit. Yeah, I mean, first of all,

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let me let me just talk about
the planned EVA. I mean, I

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again, I was testing for the
first time the new Apollo suit, and

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so the primary objective of the EVA, which was planned to be about two

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hours. Was in fact to test
the suit itself. That was the main

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issue, and the backpack which I
had on which made me of course independent

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of the spacecraft for the first time. All Eva's up until that time,

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all through Gemini you had umbilicals hoses
which connected you to the environmental control system

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inside the spacecraft, and so that's
an umbilical. But on Apollo I didn't

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have an umbilical. I had just
a simple tether, a rope that was

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all okay, and the backpack provided
my life support, and so I was

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an in dependent spacecraft really uh,
And all it was connecting me was was

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was a simple tether, which was
a pain in the butt. By the

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way. Let me let me just
say the safety tether created hazards, right

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because there's always flopping around and hook
over a antenna or over a thruster or

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something. You have to keep caring
for the for the damn tether. But

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in any event, so the objective
was to go outside test the backpack and

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the suit. But in that process, because we were the next day we

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were going to be going out and
separating the two spacecraft one hundred miles and

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coming back in and doing a rendezvous
to test the rendezvous procedures and the docking.

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The docking mechanism was a Rube Goldberg
device, I mean an extremely complicated,

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complicated device, a funnel which was
a drogue with a hole in the

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middle and a probe which went into
it, and it had all kinds of

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moving parts and springs and pressurization and
little hooks. Amuse amazing device that had

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ever worked. Actually it never failed, but it was just amazing that it

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did. But flying at the first
time, we recognized that that was a

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prime source of problems, that that
complex mechanism might not work, but we

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would have to get back into the
command module or we couldn't come home and

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re enter. It survived. So
another objective during my EVA was to externally

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transfer from the lunar module out the
front door and across a set of handrails

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to get into the command module so
that we could come home in case that

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tunnel was screwed up or the probe
and drogue messed up. So everything worked

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fine the first part of the EVA, and I'm just starting that traverse up

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the front of the lunar module to
get over to the command module and Dave

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Scott over in the command module has
got a movie camera. We didn't have

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any TV cameras in those days,
all right, so we had a movie

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camera. And the film camera jammed
after I had gotten maybe five feet up

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the front of the handrail, up
the front of the lunar module, and

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Dave says, oops, the camera
just jammed. And Jim mcdibbott says,

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okay, Rusty stop, Dave.
I'm going to give you five minutes to

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00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:43.199
fix it. That's all time we
can afford. Rusty. Stay right there,

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00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:47.719
ay, ay, sir, Nothing
like being unemployed in space. It

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was like, right, Jim,
I'm not going to go anywhere. So

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instead of holding on to the handrail
like it was vertical in a sense,

383
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I let go in my right hand. First of all, in my head,

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00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:05.840
I'm saying, okay, this five
minutes is for me. Okay,

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00:35:06.039 --> 00:35:08.400
I'm not going to start thinking about
what comes next. I'm going to take

386
00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:13.400
these five minutes to really be here. So I let go with my right

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00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:15.840
hand, just swung around with the
left hand, and I mean, here

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is the Earth, the Sun up
there, the Earth over here, and

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I'm looking at the at the Earth
horizon, you know, it's just absolutely

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spectacular and it's completely quiet, Nick, I don't know what mcdivott was doing.

391
00:35:31.440 --> 00:35:37.199
Dave Scott was trying to fix the
camera, and I'm just gaga looking

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around and mcdivott was doing whatever he
was doing. The radios only work when

393
00:35:44.440 --> 00:35:50.440
you're talking, when somebody's talking,
so the radio's totally shut off. There's

394
00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:53.480
no buzz in your ear. You
don't hear anything. The backpack is very

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00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:59.920
quiet, and so there you are, complete silence, and I'm just looking

396
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:06.679
around and it's like, let this
come in, okay. And I started

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to say back in the beginning,
you know, I have a sort of

398
00:36:08.519 --> 00:36:15.079
philosophical bent anyway, and so historically, you know, I was well aware

399
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:21.760
in a sort of academic way of
the historic nature of what we're doing.

400
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But unexpected to me as I'm just
swinging around and letting all this come in.

401
00:36:29.559 --> 00:36:35.360
My job I saw then was to
be a human sponge to just absorb

402
00:36:35.400 --> 00:36:37.440
it. I wasn't going to try
to analyg just just let it come in

403
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:44.559
process later, you know. So
I'm just look taking this in and all

404
00:36:44.679 --> 00:36:50.199
these questions start just flooding in.
You know, how did you get here,

405
00:36:51.719 --> 00:36:54.679
why are you here? What is
what does this mean? What's what's

406
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going on? And not in the
sense of out here on a Saturn five

407
00:37:01.239 --> 00:37:07.159
you know, I mean, that's
not the deal. I'm here, and

408
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this wasn't what I thought right then
it was the questions came in. It

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00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:19.039
took me like five years afterward to
really go through and think about the answers

410
00:37:19.239 --> 00:37:24.840
to these things. But I mean, I'm here because of this incredible marriage

411
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:34.440
between humanity and our machines, which
has allowed us to extend our capability as

412
00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:39.559
humans to explore, which is somehow
built into us. I'm really here as

413
00:37:39.599 --> 00:37:46.800
a representative of all of humanity,
in fact, all of earth life on

414
00:37:46.840 --> 00:37:52.400
this frontier as we're beginning to move
out into the cosmos. And this is

415
00:37:52.480 --> 00:38:00.000
not just the American taxpayers, this
is life, This is everybody simply here

416
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:08.320
on this frontier as the sensing element
of humanity, of life, of Earth

417
00:38:08.360 --> 00:38:14.159
life moving out. Five minutes is
up. Couldn't fix the camera, Okay,

418
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:16.360
Russy, you know we got to
get back in now, Okay,

419
00:38:17.159 --> 00:38:22.480
to move up the handrail quickly,
go back in the door, et cetera.

420
00:38:22.119 --> 00:38:28.599
Eva is over back to reality.
That's what it was. What was

421
00:38:28.599 --> 00:38:37.760
the reentry like re entry is really
fun. And in Apollo and again also

422
00:38:37.960 --> 00:38:43.559
Gemini and Mercury before it, you
know, you got this blunt, gum

423
00:38:43.639 --> 00:38:47.559
drop shaped thing that you're in re
entering, and you got to have the

424
00:38:47.599 --> 00:38:52.599
blunt end forward, not the pointy
end forward. Right, So you're going

425
00:38:52.719 --> 00:38:59.199
backward, and because of the you
want a bit of lift. I mean,

426
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:05.760
the center of gravity isn't exactly on
the center line, and because the

427
00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:09.599
center of gravity is displaced, the
spacecraft is tilted a little bit and that

428
00:39:09.639 --> 00:39:14.320
gives a little bit of lift as
you're going in, So you want to

429
00:39:14.360 --> 00:39:17.480
have that lift vector up. Well, that happened to me. Your heads

430
00:39:17.480 --> 00:39:22.679
are down, so you're not only
going in backward, but you're also going

431
00:39:22.679 --> 00:39:27.519
in upside down right, and the
windows are in front of you, and

432
00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:34.360
you know, your heat shield behind
you is really really hot to the point

433
00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:39.679
where it's boiling off, and it's
boiling off through a very very thin atmosphere,

434
00:39:39.760 --> 00:39:46.119
and your speed is such that you
are ionizing that vapor of your heat

435
00:39:46.119 --> 00:39:52.559
shield burning off. And so here
you are, and you're also rotating as

436
00:39:52.599 --> 00:39:57.719
you're moving the lift vector around to
get where you want to be on so

437
00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:04.400
as you're looking backward, you're seeing
your heat shield boil off and fluoresce because

438
00:40:04.400 --> 00:40:10.239
it's ionized, and you're going backward
through a neon colorful orange and white,

439
00:40:10.679 --> 00:40:16.239
blue green tube, you know.
So you're looking up a neon tube that

440
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:21.559
you just created, which is your
heat shield, you know. But you

441
00:40:21.559 --> 00:40:23.559
don't get hot because there's enough of
it there. But anyway, it's a

442
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:29.639
very interesting. So the heat pulse
comes, by the way earlier than the

443
00:40:29.679 --> 00:40:37.480
maximum G. Okay, the deceleration
peak occurs considerably after the heat peak.

444
00:40:37.159 --> 00:40:40.920
So the pretty show is pretty much
over. And now you're beginning to feel

445
00:40:42.119 --> 00:40:45.960
pressure, you know, from the
re entry and the drag, and you're

446
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:50.280
the G forces are going up and
up and up. And I remember I

447
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:53.360
looked over at mcdimmitt and I said, how many g's we got now,

448
00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:59.719
Jim. Jim looks up at the
G meter and he says zero point two.

449
00:41:00.400 --> 00:41:05.599
I said, what you know?
I got? It feels like ten.

450
00:41:06.039 --> 00:41:09.599
Right, So anyway, and everything
everything works, I mean, the

451
00:41:09.599 --> 00:41:15.480
the amazing thing about the reentry is
that there are a whole series of things

452
00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:21.159
that have to happen in sequence.
Any one of which that doesn't happen,

453
00:41:21.639 --> 00:41:27.039
you're dead, right, And so
you're sort of counting off. You know,

454
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:30.159
there's the fifth one from the last
it worked yay, or the fourth

455
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:36.239
one worked, it's the second one
gonna work yeah, And finally the last

456
00:41:36.239 --> 00:41:39.400
thing happens, you know, the
parachutes come out, and it's like,

457
00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:46.920
yes, we're gonna make it.
So it's it's a very interesting time.

458
00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:52.880
And now again each vehicle is different, and so the show shuttle comes in

459
00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:57.079
belly first and the view is completely
different, et cetera, et cetera.

460
00:41:57.280 --> 00:42:06.239
So they're all unique. But it
was a pretty exciting and fascinating experience to

461
00:42:06.599 --> 00:42:12.199
re enter. You're not I mean, I shouldn't speak for everybody, but

462
00:42:12.280 --> 00:42:16.199
you know, generally speaking, you're
not fearful. You're not You've done enough

463
00:42:16.199 --> 00:42:21.559
training. You know that you're looking
at the gaugees, you're believe in what

464
00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:25.320
you're seeing, you know, and
everything's going right. But it's really pretty

465
00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:30.840
spectacular. Just a few months later, Mansett's Foot on the Moon July of

466
00:42:30.920 --> 00:42:37.599
nineteen sixty nine probably the most globally
marveled that event, not only of that

467
00:42:37.719 --> 00:42:42.760
time, but maybe ever. What's
it like to know, as you're watching

468
00:42:42.800 --> 00:42:47.079
that that you've been a major contributor
to that process? Again, I think

469
00:42:47.880 --> 00:42:55.800
people's reactions are unique to them.
Obviously a lot of commonality, but I

470
00:42:55.880 --> 00:43:05.760
think all of us were very aware, very much aware that we were a

471
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:12.360
privileged, incredibly privileged to take part
in a truly historic event. I do

472
00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:20.440
with no question about that. Again, as I say, individuals react differently

473
00:43:20.719 --> 00:43:30.000
and put it in a different context. The context that I see now is

474
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:37.239
a bit different and larger than it
was right after and during the events.

475
00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:45.840
In some ways, While that first
landing on the Moon was truly unique and

476
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:57.519
absolutely the epitome, my own personal
sense, without taking anything away from Apollo

477
00:43:57.559 --> 00:44:07.480
eleven, was that Apollo eight was
really the more historically significant moment in the

478
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:16.119
sense that the Apollo eight crew were
the first who literally had moved out the

479
00:44:16.159 --> 00:44:24.679
birth canal of Mother Earth out into
the cosmos. They were the first participants

480
00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:31.159
actively in what I have come to
call cosmic birth, and they looked back

481
00:44:31.559 --> 00:44:39.960
from around the Moon and saw the
Earth from outside its gravitational sphere of influence.

482
00:44:43.480 --> 00:44:52.920
They are the first people who represented
Earth life moving out from the birthplace

483
00:44:52.119 --> 00:44:59.559
of life in our little corner of
the universe. And that is what Apollo

484
00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:02.840
was on all about, and in
my mind, that's the uniqueness of Apollo

485
00:45:02.920 --> 00:45:10.280
eight. Apollo eleven, of course
represented the accomplishment of the of the Kennedy

486
00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:17.599
goal, which was incredible. And
by the way, even in the Soviet

487
00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:22.559
Union, the people would come up. I would be there, and years

488
00:45:22.599 --> 00:45:27.519
afterward people would come up, and
I knew people Americans who were there at

489
00:45:27.559 --> 00:45:32.239
the time of the landing in nineteen
sixty nine, and the Soviet people would

490
00:45:32.280 --> 00:45:37.519
come up. Everybody was excited.
People in Africa were excited. I mean

491
00:45:37.559 --> 00:45:40.440
people who didn't even have the capability
to write their names, to have a

492
00:45:40.519 --> 00:45:45.719
language, to have a written language
where you would tell them and they would

493
00:45:45.800 --> 00:45:49.400
be excited. Captain Twikart, I
can't thank you enough for your time today.

494
00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:52.199
It's been a true privilege speaking with
you, and I thank you beyond

495
00:45:52.199 --> 00:45:55.239
words for your service and your courage
for our nation. Thank you, You're

496
00:45:55.320 --> 00:45:59.599
very welcome. That's United States Air
Force veteran as well as the veteran of

497
00:45:59.599 --> 00:46:04.639
the massive chuse It's National Guard,
Russell Rusty Schweikert served as a fighter pilot.

498
00:46:04.679 --> 00:46:07.480
He also served as a lunar module
pilot and did the first Apollo spacewalk

499
00:46:07.800 --> 00:46:13.079
on the Apollo nine mission, A
mission that was critically important in preparation for

500
00:46:13.119 --> 00:46:15.679
the moonlanding. It would come just
a few months later. I'm Greg Corumbus

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00:46:15.719 --> 00:46:30.599
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks for

502
00:46:30.639 --> 00:46:36.000
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation
of the American Veterans Center. For more

503
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:42.000
information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot
org. You can also follow the American

504
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:47.199
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We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the

505
00:46:47.199 --> 00:46:52.840
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506
00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:58.880
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507
00:46:59.440 --> 00:47:02.760
Thanks again for listening, and please
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