Falling to Earth

With no atmosphere to soften the lunar features, they looked disturbingly close and sharp. It was the same moon I knew from photos in my training, but when it filled my window it looked strikingly different. Seeing a dark circle on a map is abstract, but skimming across that same five-hundred-mile-wide basin in person was real. The variety was fascinating: faults, swirls, wrinkles, powdery dustings, and features that looked weathered by Earth-like oceans and dust storms. Rivers of ancient lava rippled across the barren plains. I reported with excitement on subtle surface flows, patterns, and variations in colors and shades. “After the King’s training, it’s almost like I’ve been here before,” I remarked, using our nickname for Farouk.

The shadows lengthened again, until only mountain rims remained to catch the sunlight. We kept reporting until we sped into shadow once more. The ground radioed that Farouk had been listening in and was delighted with our descriptions so far. Then, once again, Earth slipped below the horizon and we were on our own.

We burned our engine once more, which dropped us into a lower orbit. “Man, it already looks like we’re lower,” Jim remarked, as lunar features zipped by. He was right—it felt as if we were diving toward the surface, and mountains ahead of us looked unnervingly higher than our flight path. The lowest point of our orbit was now less than eleven miles above the surface and coincided with passing over the planned landing site. Some of the mountains around that zone reached up fifteen thousand feet. I stayed very aware of our altitude as we slid around the moon, documenting the uncharted regions with photos and words. As we sailed toward the highest peaks, I almost felt like pulling my feet up.

Dave and Jim would land on the moon the next day. As we ate dinner, Jim was making plans. “I think the first thing I’m going to do when we get back,” he explained, “is a beautiful night in Tahiti.”

“Hey, you’re on, buddy, you’re on!” I replied. But I knew what he was really saying. Tomorrow would be a risky day for Jim. By planning ahead, he was telling me—and himself—that he would survive the mission. It was a good idea. But I momentarily thought of those old World War II movies, where the guy tells his colleagues how he is going to marry his sweetheart when he gets home. He always dies in the next reel.

Mission control woke us early the next day informing us that, while we slept, our orbit had dropped faster than predicted. Denser parts of the moon, called “mascons,” pulled harder on the spacecraft as we passed over them. Flying over unexplored regions, we found mascons the hard way. Taking the shades off the windows, I looked out with alarm as we passed an immense lunar mountain. It looked like the peak was above us. I could clearly see small boulders littering its side, although that might have been because my eyes were wide with alarm. How low were we? We were planning to land on the moon today—but not by hitting a mountain.

Mission control gave us the figures. We had dropped down under forty-six thousand feet. Phew, we were okay, still three times higher than the mountains around the landing site. I realized the spacecraft was tilted at an angle when I’d looked out the window, so the surface only appeared to be sloping above us. But boy, those boulders looked so close. I felt like I could reach out and touch one.

Another few hours, and that might have been true. Mission control calculated that we would drop even farther as the day went on, and their margin of error was getting too close to the top of those peaks. By the time we were over the landing site, we might be as low as twenty-four thousand feet and falling.

“You can see how, when you’re coming up at low altitude on these mountains, how striking they are in the distance,” I told mission control. “It’s really hard to miss them.”

“I hope you can miss them!” mission control joked in reply. But they had a serious point. We pulsed our thrusters and raised our orbit a little.

It was an extra task in a day that was already packed. Dave and Jim headed into Falcon as early as possible to prepare for their lunar landing and were soon busy ensuring there was no broken glass in their spacesuit hoses.

We were fast approaching a vital moment in the mission: our two spacecraft would undock. The ground informed us that Neil Armstrong was watching from the mission control viewing area, while lunar module hotshot Ed Mitchell took over as CapCom. Ed began reading and confirming precise data sequences to us. We floated back into our spacesuits, updated the lunar module’s guidance computer, tracked landmarks, and equalized spacecraft pressures. The computers in both spacecraft were too primitive to talk to each other, so we had to manually enter information so that they agreed on where we were and how fast we were orbiting. Dave raced ahead on the timeline, keen to get everything prepared. It took hours and drew on some of our toughest engineering training.

It was time to lock the hatches between the spacecraft. We were so engrossed in our work that there was never a moment to pause and say good-bye and good luck. I guess we didn’t need to. Dave and Jim relied on me to keep Endeavour, our only ride home, in lunar orbit for them. I had confidence they would survive their ambitious lunar surface explorations.

I hit the switch to separate the spacecraft. Nothing happened.

Our instruments suggested that an umbilical in the docking tunnel was not properly connected, halting the signal to operate the latches connecting the spacecraft. So I hurriedly floated back up into the docking tunnel and opened Endeavour’s hatch. If the spacecraft separated now, I was dead. I’d be shot out like a cork from a bottle as the oxygen in the crew cabin emptied into space.

I found that the umbilical cord was loose in its socket. So I unplugged it and rammed it back in. That should do it. Then I locked the hatch again and floated back into my couch.

I hit the switch again, and the two spacecraft gently slid apart. “You’re on your own,” Jim radioed to me.

I looked out of the window as we flew in formation. Falcon hung above me, its coppery sides glinting in the sunlight. The spidery spacecraft looked scarily fragile out there in deep space. “You’ve got four good-looking gear,” I told Dave, confirming that their landing legs were fully deployed. They continued to busily check out their spacecraft for their descent to the surface.

I prepared to burn Endeavour’s engine again, to raise me into a sixty-mile circular orbit and leave Dave and Jim behind. Without Falcon attached I was much lighter, and I really felt the acceleration when the engine lit. “What a kick in the tail!” I radioed to Dave. I zoomed behind and above Falcon, leaving them to land.

But it was more than a kick in the tail. I had my heart in my throat. We had removed the center couch so Dave and Jim could easily float into Falcon, but I had not put it back. This meant that there was nothing to stop my own seat on the left side from shifting on its supporting strut. When the engine lit, my couch swung toward the middle of Endeavour, away from my instrument panel. To my alarm, I realized I could no longer reach the controls.

I held on and hoped the computer was performing the burn correctly. If I needed to reach over to shut it off, I’d be in trouble. Within a few seconds as the acceleration peaked, I could swing the couch back and reach the instruments again. But it had been a scary moment.

Meanwhile, Ed Mitchell gave Dave and Jim the call—Falcon was go for powered descent to the surface. We’d taken five days to get to this moment, and their landing would only take another twelve and a half minutes. I’d come almost the whole way with them so far, but now they would make this brief journey without me.

It felt odd to see them grow smaller, until they were just a speck against the lunar background. I shot way ahead and quickly lost sight of them. But I listened to Ed, Dave, and Jim on the radio as Falcon’s descent engine fired and the lunar module dropped through the mountain range toward their Hadley Rille landing site. Minutes later, I heard Jim shout “Bam!” Falcon had thumped down firmly onto the lunar surface. I smiled in relief. They had made it.

“Okay, Houston, the Falcon is on the plain at Hadley,” Dave announced. I grinned. The Plain was the name of the parade field back at West Point, and I knew Dave had just named the landing site as a tribute to our academy.

President Nixon issued another message. “The president sends his congratulations to the entire ground team and the Apollo 15 crew on a successful landing, and sends his best wishes for the rest of the mission.” Boy, he got that message out to us fast.