Falling to Earth

anthem during his liftoff. Now he had to accept the congratulations of air force dignitaries for playing it.

It was my turn to speak. I forced my legs into motion and shuffled up to the microphone. “It’s not that I’m shaky, it’s just that I don’t have my sea legs yet,” I began. “We just finished probably the most fantastic twelve days I’ve ever had in my life. And I guess only one thing surpasses the excitement and the intense feeling I had on the flight, and that was sort of the feeling I had when I saw you all today. It sure is nice to be back, and it sure is good to see you all. Thanks a bunch for the pickup!”

^{Unshaven, I thank the welcoming crowd on the deck of the ship.}

The doctors were eager to get their hands on us and led us away for postflight tests. Even when lying down on a platform, we could feel that our heart rates were higher than normal. Our bodies were readjusting to gravity. The flight surgeons walked us around and took good care of us. We appreciated it, as we felt pretty odd. But we were still told nothing about the in-flight heart concerns.

For the first time, I noticed that Dave’s fingernails were black. He’d tightened up his spacesuit gloves so he could have a better feel at the end of his fingers when working on the lunar surface. As a result, he’d bruised and blackened them badly. He must have been in pain all the way back from the moon, but I had never known. Man, that guy was a hard driver. He was so goal oriented during the mission and would not give up, no matter what the barriers were. I had to admire that about him.

At last, after the medical checks, we could have a shower—our first in two weeks. Dave and Jim were still grimy with moon dust, and I didn’t smell too good either. Showers aboard ship were small and boxy, with rough military soap and towels. It was nothing luxurious. But after two weeks that warm water felt like one of the best showers of my life.

Time for lunch in the captain’s wardroom. The food on the flight had been good enough, but I was ready for something more substantial. A big, juicy steak awaited me, which I wolfed down. Dave and I had talked about ice cream all the way back from the moon, and now was our chance to be decadent. Jim didn’t eat much, but Dave and I slurped down ice cream like we were little kids.

I was full, and still not used to walking. But the celebrations weren’t over. The ship had about seven different compartments, each with its own set of workers, and each wanted to welcome us. So we toured them all. Every compartment had baked a special cake. I felt pretty drained by then from the exertion, but I cheered up when I saw the friendly reception. I had a ball, probably on a sugar high from seven slices of cake.

We received the good news that Endeavour had been brought aboard the ship without any water slopping through the hatch. It had been a long and eventful day. I had woken up more than sixty thousand miles from planet Earth and ended my day on a ship journeying south toward Honolulu. It was time to get some sleep.

I woke up to the sound of clanging. Our berth was right below the flight deck, and those guys started work early. A military ship is never a quiet place. I felt much better, though, and very well rested. Jim, however, still looked tired. He hadn’t slept well, he explained, because of the noise and also because he still felt odd, like his head was pointing toward the floor, even when he was sleeping flat.

We headed up to the deck, and there was the beautiful Hawaiian island of Oahu. A helicopter waited to take us the short journey to Hickam Air Force Base. Touching down, I stepped off the helicopter and onto solid ground for the first time since I had made my way to the launchpad in Florida. It felt good to truly be back on earth once again.

A crowd of thousands awaited us, along with some local dignitaries, so we gave some more brief speeches and thanked them. But there was no time in the schedule to enjoy Hawaii. After some hurried farewells, we were stuffed into a C-141 cargo plane for the long flight back to Houston.

By this point in the mission, I had forgotten all about the space covers deal Dave had arranged. Until we were back on earth, I’d had no reason to think about them for months.

But now here they were, as Dave pulled them out in the C-141. He’d not only had them stamped and postmarked to note the day of launch, he’d also managed to get them postmarked on the ship the day we splashed down. I looked at them with interest. I’d never seen one before. I’d never even seen the design.

While aboard ship, Dave had mentioned that he would have his covers stamped on the Okinawa with the splashdown date. Good idea, I thought. We hadn’t gone back into Endeavour after splashdown, but a team of technicians had removed all the important items ready to transport to Houston. They returned our PPKs to us, which was standard procedure. So I had my covers postmarked. Mine were not postmarked on launch day because they had been stowed in my PPK inside the spacecraft, as per regulations.

Then there was another surprise for Jim and me. We’d agreed with Dave to carry a hundred covers for Eiermann. But Dave unexpectedly pulled out a pile of about four hundred.

Don’t worry, Dave explained. He’d had another hundred made for each of us. We should keep them for ourselves until we were all out of the space program, and until Eiermann and Sieger had concluded their business. Otherwise we’d be undercutting them.

Dave was well prepared; he pulled out special pens for us to sign all of the covers. It was a smooth flight, and a long one, so we had plenty of time to sit there and sign away. I thought nothing of it. Once we landed I took my hundred covers with me to put in my safety deposit box. Jim took his, and Dave kept about two hundred, his own and the covers to send to Eiermann. It was done. I forgot all about them once again. In retrospect, I should have opened the door and thrown them out of the plane.

Perhaps it was an ominous sign of things to come with those covers, but it was dark and rainy when we touched down at Ellington Field. Despite the weather a crowd of thousands had turned out, dressed in raincoats and carrying umbrellas. It was time to give another quick speech. “I’m on the last leg of a trip from Cape Kennedy to Houston,” I joked, “and I saw some interesting things along the way!”

“We went as Americans,” I summed up, “but we really did it for all mankind.” These weren’t just PR words—I really meant them. It was also my opportunity to begin to thank the tens of thousands of people in Houston and around the world who had helped us with our flight. We got the glory, but we couldn’t have done it without an enormous team. I was—and I remain—very grateful to them.

Deke Slayton also welcomed us and added his congratulations for a great job. To know I had pleased him meant more than all the other praise showered on us. He was usually sparing with congratulations, which was a good thing. When he gave it, you knew he meant it.

At last I spotted Merrill and Alison, my beloved daughters, who ran over to give me an enormous hug. They had been caught up in the excitement of Dad flying to the moon and were thrilled to see me again. I had missed them a lot—and boy, did I have some stories to tell them.

My parents were still in town. My father, so teary-eyed and emotional when I launched, was back to his normal self. “You’re back safe,” he whispered to me, “and I’m glad.”

Have you ever been away on a long vacation? You’ll know the feeling when you first put the key in the door of your home and then close it behind you. After such an eventful time, the apartment seemed so quiet. Everything was where I had left it. I had mail to sort through, chores to do. It was time to get back to normal life.

I had a strange experience the morning after I came home. When I walked out of my apartment door in the early morning to grab my newspaper, I saw the moon in the sky. It shocked me to see it. It was bizarre to think that I was there just a few days before, flying across its peaks and valleys. The moon looked so different now: so very far away. It really gave me a new perspective on how far we had traveled.

I’d been asked to skip breakfast that morning, as I headed back to my workplace for some more medical tests. Then we began many, many days of debriefings. The mission planners wanted to go over every detail of our flight plan while it was still fresh in our minds. So we sat around a table and talked through every moment of the mission, reliving it for the engineers. We spent about as long debriefing as we had flying the mission. It also took us that long for our bodies to get back to normal.

For several days I had to really watch how I walked and how I reached for something. It felt harder learning