a light, hollow pole wedged down into the rock surface that had been pummeled by asteroids for thousands of years—I stepped back and saluted, almost instinctively. Neil took my photo as I did. That salute was one of the proudest moments of my life. Although not given to emotionalism, patriotism and love for my country overwhelmed me. All of my West Point training, my years of service as an Air Force fighter pilot during the Korean War, my time in Germany flying simulated nuclear attack missions, every time I’d ever placed my hand over my heart as I stated the Pledge of Allegiance, every time I’d ever heard “The Star-Spangled Banner”—it was all there, wrapped up in that simple salute on the Moon. And for the record, I’ve always thought the flag Neil and I placed looked the best of the six flags that were planted on the Moon by astronauts between July 1969 and December 1972, when the Apollo mission was completed.
Doing the right thing isn’t always easy—especially when others don’t understand or appreciate your actions—but doing the right thing is always worth it in the long run.
• CHAPTER TEN •
TRUST YOUR GUT … AND YOUR INSTRUMENTS.
Have you ever been traveling through the darkness in a strange, unknown area, with nothing to guide you but a GPS? You cannot see the road signs—if there are any—and there is nobody around from whom you can obtain accurate directions or other pertinent information. A feeling of loneliness and, worse yet, aloneness grips you. You make a turn but you aren’t quite sure if it is correct. You nervously try to listen to the mechanical voice talking to you from the GPS, and then you hear that terse statement, “Recalculating.” That’s bad news because you realize that you have messed up, but it is good news because you know that your onboard guidance system is making adjustments that will help to get you back on the right track.
In some ways, that is similar to traveling in space. You must trust your instruments to get you safely where you plan to go. But it is not a blind trust, and there are moments, even in space, when you must “trust your gut” and override your instruments as you make a tough course decision on your own.
Prior to landing on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and I practiced on Earth for hours and hours in a simulated lunar landing training vehicle. As the lunar module pilot, I often wondered why I was practicing drills that would obviously never be needed—flying the lunar landing training vehicle. I couldn’t imagine any conditions under which Neil might turn over to me the command controls of the lunar landing module. If we experienced a problem that serious, no doubt, we would abort the landing anyhow.
But NASA wanted us to prepare for any possibility, so day after day, I worked alongside Neil. Even in the simulator, though, things could sometimes go wrong. We had several “accidents” in which something caused us to lose directional control and we had to abort during a simulated landing.
Nevertheless, we weren’t worried. We knew we could trust our instruments and the engineers who were helping us.
Besides, Neil had plenty of history with close calls. He had experienced several previous crashes, but his courage never wavered, nor did his ability to remain calm under pressure. During the Korean War, he flew from an aircraft carrier, making low-altitude bombing runs aimed at destroying bridges and other infrastructure, but as an antiaircraft measure, the North Koreans strung up wires by which they could trip low-flying planes. The wires were difficult to spot from the air. On one mission, Neil’s plane ran through one of these cables, knocking off more than six feet of his right wing. He battled to maintain control of his aircraft, keeping it at high speed to avoid dropping out of the sky. He realized that he could not land on the aircraft carrier and that he would have to bail out, which he did.
Years later, while training as an astronaut, Neil flew home to Ohio and had another accident. It didn’t faze him. He literally crashed a plane and went home and had dinner with his family, including a piece of pie for dessert.
During Gemini 8, Neil flew with Dave Scott, and an important part of their mission was to dock with the Agena, an unmanned spacecraft that had been launched earlier that day. The procedure was essential for future rendezvous and docking missions