Childhood heroes are getting scarce. Well, at least outside YOUTube and video games. Kids need heroes to grow. My heroes were my Dad, cowboys in white hats like Roy Rogers, knights in armor, and astronauts. The space race to the moon began with the Russians launching a satellite named Sputnik. It was only a silver ball about the size of a basketball with spiky antennas. The only thing it could do is transmit a constant beep. That little beep announced to the world that the Russians had an orbiting object. They flaunted the achievement by making that sure that little beep could be heard by every Amateur Radio Operator in the world. Nothing was mentioned of the many failures and rocket technology captured from the Germans after WWII.
America had also appropriated a share of German scientists, including Werner Von Braun. Von Braun quickly became the biggest influence in what would named “The Space Race.” The rocket research was funded by the military on both sides. The Germans had shown the world the value of V2 Rockets as weapons late in WWII. The American efforts in making rockets were poor at best, before the Russians kicked things up a notch.
In 1962, President Kennedy made a passionate speech declaring that America would put the first man on the Moon by the end of the decade. That created a huge budget for the new NASA and a spark to lure every engineer with the challenge of making the impossible happen. The American public, including little me, was excited!
Potential astronauts were hand picked from military test pilots. These fast-thinking daredevils became the face of the Gemini Program. Hundreds of pilots vied for the honor of being stuffed into a capsule smaller than an outhouse. This took heroism to a new level. The gamble was sitting helplessly in a cocoon at the top of an experimental rocket filled with tons of explosives designed and built by dozens of contractors working for the lowest bid. Who wouldn’t sign up for that adventure? These were men who were used to being control of a plane, which in the worst-case scenario had a parachute. Now they had no parachute and little control. The onboard computing power of the Apollo capsule was less than a wristwatch today. Whole new technologies, math, and breakfast drinks (Tang) for a weightless environment had to be invented, not mention, outer space toilets. What do you know, it really was rocket science!
Despite all the schedule setbacks, tragedy and hype, America achieved Earth orbits and then moon orbits set us up for the 1969 moon landing. Every American family remembers where they were sitting next to a fuzzy black and white TV broadcast of the first man on the moon. I was camping with my parents, listening to a radio. The impossible had been achieved! My hero was not only wearing a white hat, he was wearing a white suit and helmet and drinking Tang.
By ED PECK – Special to the Herald Times
