Between the years 1969 and 1972, 12 men
walked on the surface of the moon
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as the crowning achievement of NASA's
Apollo program.
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Hundreds of thousands of people worked
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for more than a decade
to accomplish this seeming impossibility.
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On April 16th, 1972, Apollo 16
launched with astronauts
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John Young, Ken Mattingly, and Charlie
Duke on board,
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and five days later, on April 21st,
John Young and Charlie Duke
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landed on the surface of the moon,
the fifth time humanity had done so.
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It is an honor to have Charlie Duke on
this episode of Anabaptist Perspectives.
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As one of only 12 people in history
to walk on the moon.
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But the story doesn't end there.
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Charlie Duke ultimately came to Christ
after his experience,
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and this is the story
we want to tell in today's podcast.
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Enjoy this special episode
as we journey with Charlie
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Duke on one of the greatest
explorations ever lived.
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So I think the first question
I would have for you is 52 years ago
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or almost 53 years ago,
you walked on the moon,
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which, again, very few people
have had the privilege of doing that.
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As you set foot onto the lunar surface
for the very first time.
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What's going through your mind?
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It was, We're finally here.
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We were late landing, and,
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they made us do a rest period
before we got outside.
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So you can imagine the
eight hours of rest period,
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Little
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sleep we got because we were so excited
by getting outside.
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But when I got outside,
I was just in awe of the wonder
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and the beauty and,
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the the thought that you know, nobody's
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ever stepped here before
in all of history.
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And, it was,
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And, it was,
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a feeling, a emotional high.
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And, I,
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let's see, how would I describe just,
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you know, awe, wonder, and all of those,
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statements.
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Beauty overcome
with the beauty of not overcome, but,
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the beauty of the moon that, was had,
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of course, sterile.
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Enhancement to it,
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from the fact that nobody
had ever been there before, no atmosphere.
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So you could see very clearly
to the horizons and, look up in the sky.
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And it was, jet black and, no
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stars available, cause the suns
shining all the time on you.
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And at least the Apollo.
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So I was I was reading in your book and,
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you write in there what your first words
on the surface of the moon are.
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And if I'm quoting correctly,
it was something like, fantastic,
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that's the first foot on the lunar surface
or something to that effect.
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Do you remember those first words?
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And and what was going through your mind?
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well, that's pretty close.
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I'll remember pretty closely
as I, as I stepped off I said
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fantastic, that’s the first footprint
that's been here forever. And,
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what a place, what a view.
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What an experience.
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Those kind of thoughts
were going through my mind, and,
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and, so it was, a thrill.
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John, wanted to get to work.
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He came out first,
so we had to get to Rover
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off, off of the Lunar module.
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off, off of the Lunar module.
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And so he wanted to get to work, so.
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And you don't have very much time
to appreciate, just where you are
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or what you are. It just comes all that,
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you know, you stop and you
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have a moment, and you think about it,
and he said, man, I'm on the moon.
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So it's, almost an overwhelming thought,
but it's believable.
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And, you know, it.
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So we were having so much fun, we didn't
want to get, we didn’t want to come back.
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So, but, Houston said, get in, guys.
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It's time we come home.
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And you mentioned John there.
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That would have been John Young.
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Correct. Commander of the mission.
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Correct. Commander of the mission.
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That's correct. He was the commander.
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We trained together as a backup
on Apollo 13,
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flew on the 16, and then we were back
backup together on Apollo 17, too.
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So we had three, three, over
three years of training together.
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So, it was,
he was a great guy, great leader and,
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not a,
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not an authoritarian leader.
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Or, I'm doing this, this is my flight,
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and I'm, you don’t touch this.
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The only thing we had that, we had to,
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that we divided our,
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skills was in,
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in the rover, he drove and I navigated,
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So you never got to drive the rover
then on the moon.
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So you never got to drive the rover
then on the moon.
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No, never did.
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That's kind of a bummer.
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Well, it was not really,
I had the best job
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because I could look around, you know,
he had to stare right in front of the
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right in front of the car,
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or you'd come over a ridge
and there'd be a crater or boulder there.
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And, so he had to navigate around
it really quickly.
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So, and I was looking around and,
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under way, you don't have the TV, it's
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flopping around,
and so you don't get a picture.
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So I was describing, what we were saying,
and every 50m,
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I'd take a picture
of, of the surrounding terrain.
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And, so it was the travel guide, really.
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And your as a travel guide,
you were talking to your travelers.
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Who were 250,000 miles away on Earth
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and trying to keep them
abreast of what you were seeing.
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So. Wow.
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That's that that even today,
like these years later,
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there has to be an element of this
that feels almost surreal.
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Like it's hard to.
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It's such an incredible thing.
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It's such an incredible thing.
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Are there moments where it's like
wow that's
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almost hard to believe that you did it.
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Does that make sense?
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I'm not even sure how to ask that question
because it's just so unusual.
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You know? No. No, not really.
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It's, it's always been a believable,
real experience to me.
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And, it was never,
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and never, never a thought,
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did we really do this? And,
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we really landed on the moon in spite
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of what you see on the internet
these days about we faked it all,
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six times we landed on the moon, and,
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I told, I told somebody on NBC
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15 years or so ago
about when the, the, you know, the
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the, the, fake, the,
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the people we didn't land on
the moon is big fake.
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I said, if we faked it,
why did we fake it nine times.
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You know,
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we went to the moon, nine times,
landed six.
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And if you go to fake something,
do it once and shut up and,
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But we had 400,000 people working on it,
and it's just amazing
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that they've all been able
to keep a secret for the last 50 years.
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If we faked it and it the evidence
is overwhelming that we went and landed.
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And you can see,
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And you can see,
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there's a, a satellite
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orbiting the moon now
called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,
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and it's mapping
the moon is what it’s chore is.
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And so as they come over the Apollo
landing sites,
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they take pictures with a camera
with about six feet resolution.
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And on our flight, you can see the car,
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you can see the descent stage,
you can see the experiments package and
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and can't see individual footprints,
but you can see where we walked.
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When you walk over it, it the moon is
bright gray, due to the radiation.
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But when you walk over,
it turns dark gray and it flips over.
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I guess the grains of the moon.
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And so it gets a dark gray, and you can
see all of the tracks and stuff like that.
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So evidence is overwhelming.
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that, that must spark some,
some really pleasant memories.
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When you look at that those photos
from, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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You know, that's where you lived.
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You lived on the moon
for a couple of days.
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You know, that's got to feel that's got to
feel pretty amazing to look at that.
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Yeah. It is, it's, you know, it's.
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Yeah. Look at this.
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You know, first time I saw it,
you can see clearly the color
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and the dark areas where we drove and
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and and and scuffed up the surface
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and the descent stage
and and the experiments package.
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It looks like white dots down there, but,
that's the experiments we left behind.
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So, so I'd like to back up a little
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and ask you just in general
about your career at NASA.
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So like when did you join NASA
and what all did you do there.
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I'm sure you did a lot more than just,
you know, obviously you flew to the moon,
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but there were other things that you did
as well.
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Talk me through a bit of what
that experience was like.
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I was selected,
and and the fifth group of astronauts,
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there were 19 of us,
and we started training in April.
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We reported, let me say,
we reported to NASA in April of 1966.
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And the first couple
of months, we just, had,
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classes on,
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what NASA was all about and, and,
and, and,
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how it operates
and who does this and who does that.
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And then we started in geology.
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None of us were,
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professional geologists.
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And, so if you’re gonna go to the moon,
you ought to know what kind of rocks to
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pick up.
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So, we started an extensive,
training in geology,
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and I continued,
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we started out about 3 or 4 months
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after we got there,
and that continued once a month.
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We'd have a field trip somewhere,
and, usually,
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we went to Hawaii four or five times with,
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the volcanoes over there and,
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south, the southwestern United States
and northeastern, united,
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north western United States and, and,
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some people went, even at our flight,
didn't have this training over there,
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but some people even went to Europe
and, trained in geology.
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So we were well trained as geologists
when we got there.
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I loved the field trips.
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It was it got you out of the office and,
we were going
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3 or 4 days and, simulating,
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simulating the moon flight.
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You know, how to backpack.
You have a camera.
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And, and the geologists were
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had it designed to traverse for you.
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And these these guys were experts
on the area you were exploring.
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First time we'd ever seen it,
but they were, you know, got their PhDs
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in this area.
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So they knew every rock and every type.
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So I did design.
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They designed the,
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the traverses across the area
so that we could,
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identify, began
to identify these different kind of rocks.
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And, so it was really good training
and out of the office.
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Well, I and then I was,
I got put on a support crew for,
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well, the first thing I really did was
significant was after the fire,
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Apollo one caught fire
and killed, Grissom, White, and Chaffee,
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in January of 67.
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And after that, we
we shut down for about 18 months. And,
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so, we were,
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Stuart Roosa and I were on a,
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a team.
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That was how do you get off the launch pad
once we fixed the spacecraft?
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How do you get off the launch pad?
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And, so we'd of we had two ways off
the launch, and we figured out you could.
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We had a slide wire
where you could hook onto the slide
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wire, slide
down from off the top of the pad about,
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I think it was a half mile,
a quarter mile, half a mile away.
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And the cable just took you down and you
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rammed into a net that stopped you.
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Or you could jump into the elevator,
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and there was a freefall elevator
that went down into the center of the pad.
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And it was about way
below way below pad level.
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And it was about way
below way below pad level.
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And there was a big room down there,
blast room, they call it.
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And, you'd run and you'd run into that.
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And, if the rocket exploded on top of you,
you could survive down there
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for 30 days
in this little in this little room called,
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I don't remember the name of it
now, but it was, it was on.
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It was on,
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springs.
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springs.
239
00:13:03,157 --> 00:13:06,994
So, if the vehicle blew up and started
shaking,
240
00:13:06,994 --> 00:13:09,997
the thing would
the floor would just shake, and,
241
00:13:10,748 --> 00:13:14,376
you had 30 days
a supply of food down there, oxygen and,
242
00:13:14,794 --> 00:13:18,798
drinking
water and, facilities to go bathroom.
243
00:13:18,798 --> 00:13:23,761
And it was, you could be self-contained
down there, trapped for 30 days till the.
244
00:13:23,761 --> 00:13:28,557
And they figured they could dig out,
dig you out in 30 days. So,
245
00:13:29,850 --> 00:13:31,977
That's. That's pretty wild.
246
00:13:31,977 --> 00:13:33,020
Well, so.
247
00:13:33,020 --> 00:13:33,062
Well, so.
248
00:13:33,062 --> 00:13:37,691
So then, if I remember right, you did some
work on the lunar module then with the.
249
00:13:37,900 --> 00:13:40,110
Was that Apollo ten? I think it was.
250
00:13:40,110 --> 00:13:40,736
That's right.
251
00:13:40,736 --> 00:13:42,780
I was the,
252
00:13:42,780 --> 00:13:45,199
support crew for Apollo ten.
253
00:13:45,199 --> 00:13:48,494
First time we took, the lunar module
to the moon
254
00:13:48,994 --> 00:13:51,747
and, I had worked, prior to that.
255
00:13:51,747 --> 00:13:52,498
Had worked, on the propulsion systems
256
00:13:52,498 --> 00:13:54,250
Had worked, on the propulsion systems
257
00:13:54,250 --> 00:13:57,253
on the lunar module, and,
258
00:13:57,753 --> 00:14:01,882
which was the descent engine
and the ascent engine.
259
00:14:01,882 --> 00:14:04,802
And, we'd
had some trouble with the ascent engine.
260
00:14:04,802 --> 00:14:05,970
So I was on a committee,
261
00:14:07,096 --> 00:14:08,973
to select a new,
262
00:14:09,431 --> 00:14:12,142
a new contractor, I guess you'd say.
263
00:14:12,142 --> 00:14:15,437
And, then we got that done, and, and,
264
00:14:15,521 --> 00:14:18,649
I got put on, support crew for Apollo ten,
265
00:14:19,275 --> 00:14:21,694
which led to a
266
00:14:21,694 --> 00:14:25,239
Capcom, with in Mission Control
267
00:14:25,739 --> 00:14:30,119
and, our flight,
which was, Gene Kranz and,
268
00:14:31,328 --> 00:14:34,999
was the flight director,
very famous flight director.
269
00:14:34,999 --> 00:14:39,169
And, so, we the crew
270
00:14:39,169 --> 00:14:43,340
got into the lunar module undocked,
and we simulated a descent.
271
00:14:45,676 --> 00:14:47,553
And there
272
00:14:47,553 --> 00:14:48,512
a lunar module.
273
00:14:48,512 --> 00:14:51,515
It couldn't land because of, overweight.
274
00:14:51,515 --> 00:14:53,767
I don't know, a lot of different reasons,
but it could.
275
00:14:53,767 --> 00:14:57,646
It could light the engine,
and you could start down and you got down
276
00:14:57,646 --> 00:15:02,026
within few miles, and then you aborted
and came back up again.
277
00:15:02,109 --> 00:15:06,155
And, and so it it did the simulate,
it did the,
278
00:15:07,072 --> 00:15:10,826
actual profiles except for the landing.
279
00:15:11,201 --> 00:15:13,954
And so it was a really good training.
280
00:15:13,954 --> 00:15:14,955
The things worked good.
281
00:15:14,955 --> 00:15:19,209
We proved up the systems and, so, we,
282
00:15:19,919 --> 00:15:24,715
we were ready to go two months later
when, Apollo 11 got ready to fly.
283
00:15:25,341 --> 00:15:29,553
And since I was Capcom
during that part of the mission,
284
00:15:30,304 --> 00:15:33,098
on Apollo ten, Armstrong,
285
00:15:33,098 --> 00:15:36,393
Neil Armstrong asked me to be Capcom again
286
00:15:36,810 --> 00:15:40,606
on Apollo 11, And normally you didn't.
287
00:15:40,606 --> 00:15:41,857
It didn't work that way.
288
00:15:41,857 --> 00:15:45,319
You, you changed
Capcom's on every flight, but,
289
00:15:45,819 --> 00:15:48,530
he said you, you've done it, and I.
290
00:15:48,530 --> 00:15:51,075
Well, why don't you come on over
and do it for us?
291
00:15:51,075 --> 00:15:56,872
And, and stay put to keep the team
together, if you will, in Mission Control.
292
00:15:57,247 --> 00:15:58,916
So I did, and that was a big honor.
293
00:15:58,916 --> 00:16:01,835
And, also very exciting and, stressful.
294
00:16:03,295 --> 00:16:04,088
Experience
295
00:16:04,088 --> 00:16:07,091
trying to get them all to the moon.
296
00:16:07,174 --> 00:16:09,093
You know, we had,
297
00:16:09,551 --> 00:16:12,554
but first we had, what did we have, oh,
298
00:16:12,805 --> 00:16:15,808
communication problems and we had,
299
00:16:16,016 --> 00:16:17,768
computer overloads.
300
00:16:17,768 --> 00:16:20,771
And then we had,
301
00:16:21,438 --> 00:16:23,107
trajectory problems
302
00:16:23,107 --> 00:16:26,110
and, which resulted in
303
00:16:27,152 --> 00:16:29,947
Armstrong
having to fly a level across the moon
304
00:16:29,947 --> 00:16:34,743
for 3 or 4 miles,
and that used up all our reserve fuel.
305
00:16:35,202 --> 00:16:36,912
So now we're minimum fuel.
306
00:16:36,912 --> 00:16:40,416
And before we landed, and,
and that got very testy.
307
00:16:41,375 --> 00:16:44,128
Tension in mission
control was through the roof.
308
00:16:44,128 --> 00:16:44,378
Tension in mission
control was through the roof.
309
00:16:45,963 --> 00:16:48,966
So this is interesting to me
because I didn't realize that
310
00:16:49,341 --> 00:16:52,428
that you were part,
part of the team with Apollo 11.
311
00:16:53,303 --> 00:16:56,807
But I've, I've seen the clips, you know,
listen to the audio and things of Mission
312
00:16:56,807 --> 00:16:59,852
control when Apollo 11
successfully lands on the moon,
313
00:16:59,852 --> 00:17:02,312
and you can
you can see how tense that was. Right.
314
00:17:02,312 --> 00:17:03,731
I mean,
they're they're running low on fuel.
315
00:17:03,731 --> 00:17:04,898
Is this going to actually work?
316
00:17:04,898 --> 00:17:07,776
It's the first time
we're trying to land on the moon.
317
00:17:07,776 --> 00:17:12,990
And, when Armstrong gets it down, I mean,
hopefully I got the quotes right, but
318
00:17:12,990 --> 00:17:16,535
Armstrong says something like tranquility
Base here, the eagle has landed.
319
00:17:16,869 --> 00:17:20,581
And then I never knew this,
but this was you who were talking to him.
320
00:17:20,581 --> 00:17:23,167
And you say this
and these are kind of infamous words.
321
00:17:23,167 --> 00:17:26,628
It says, Roger, tranquility,
we copy you on the ground.
322
00:17:26,795 --> 00:17:28,630
You got a bunch of guys
about to turn blue.
323
00:17:28,630 --> 00:17:30,632
We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.
324
00:17:42,102 --> 00:17:43,270
And I never knew that was you.
325
00:17:43,270 --> 00:17:45,439
And so it's kind of neat to to.
326
00:17:45,439 --> 00:17:47,399
Wow. Like you were right
there. Like you were right.
327
00:17:47,399 --> 00:17:49,443
Part of that.
Part of that piece of history.
328
00:17:50,736 --> 00:17:51,612
Well, that,
329
00:17:51,612 --> 00:17:55,324
tension in mission control was,
as I said, through the roof.
330
00:17:55,324 --> 00:18:00,704
And, and when he touched down and then,
it was just a big sigh, it's
331
00:18:00,704 --> 00:18:04,416
like punching a big balloon, you know,
and all the air escapes instantly
332
00:18:06,293 --> 00:18:09,838
and, so, we were very, very excited.
333
00:18:09,838 --> 00:18:14,259
Of course, I, I gotta say,
I was probably tenser, more tense
334
00:18:14,259 --> 00:18:18,138
during that landing than I was
when I actually landed on the moon.
335
00:18:18,388 --> 00:18:18,472
Yeah.
336
00:18:18,472 --> 00:18:19,348
Yeah.
337
00:18:19,348 --> 00:18:22,142
And so you're, you're in
338
00:18:22,142 --> 00:18:25,979
you're in the lunar module
and you get all, you get all the cues,
339
00:18:25,979 --> 00:18:29,441
you know, you got the instruments,
you got out the window, you got,
340
00:18:29,775 --> 00:18:32,694
you see it
all, whereas in the mission control.
341
00:18:32,694 --> 00:18:36,990
You just looking at a little TV screen
about 12 by 12,
342
00:18:36,990 --> 00:18:40,494
and you can only look at so much, and you,
343
00:18:41,370 --> 00:18:44,248
And so it was, a lot of tension.
344
00:18:45,874 --> 00:18:47,876
What a what a privilege though that you,
345
00:18:47,876 --> 00:18:51,505
that you got to be the person
communicating with Neil Armstrong
346
00:18:51,505 --> 00:18:54,216
when they, when they land on the moon,
quite honor. Yeah.
347
00:18:54,216 --> 00:18:57,219
Big honor. It was. It was.
348
00:18:57,386 --> 00:18:58,804
That's that's really neat.
349
00:18:58,804 --> 00:19:02,349
Well, so after Apollo 11
and this is another piece
350
00:19:02,349 --> 00:19:05,894
I didn't put together until
I was doing research for this interview,
351
00:19:05,894 --> 00:19:09,064
but you were on the backup crew
for Apollo 13,
352
00:19:09,439 --> 00:19:12,943
and, the whole when they had to pull Ken
353
00:19:12,943 --> 00:19:18,031
Mattingly off that crew and,
replace him with the backup is because
354
00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,243
you'd been exposed to the measles,
if I remember right.
355
00:19:22,077 --> 00:19:23,996
I actually had the meals,
356
00:19:23,996 --> 00:19:26,415
and I then I exposed,
357
00:19:26,415 --> 00:19:31,545
I exposed all of the crew to the measles,
and they tested everybody,
358
00:19:31,545 --> 00:19:34,715
and everybody had had the measles
except for Mattingly.
359
00:19:34,715 --> 00:19:37,718
So it's a big debate between
360
00:19:37,718 --> 00:19:41,930
flight flight Directorate
and the medical guys
361
00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:44,391
whether we're going to pull him off,
or let him go.
362
00:19:44,391 --> 00:19:47,394
The medical guys won, and so,
363
00:19:47,811 --> 00:19:52,149
they had about maybe a week to get ready
with a backup crew of the guy.
364
00:19:52,149 --> 00:19:55,277
And, and the training was, so,
365
00:19:56,486 --> 00:19:58,113
so in step, both back
366
00:19:58,113 --> 00:20:03,702
crew, backup crew and prime crew that,
you could take one guy out
367
00:20:03,702 --> 00:20:08,165
or stick it in and, from the backup
crew as they came in and, and,
368
00:20:10,167 --> 00:20:12,628
Jim Lovell had the final say,
369
00:20:12,628 --> 00:20:15,631
after
they got 4 or 5 days of training, he,
370
00:20:18,008 --> 00:20:20,969
the flight direct, not flight director,
but the,
371
00:20:21,220 --> 00:20:21,887
Neil, not Neil,
372
00:20:21,929 --> 00:20:23,305
Deke Slayton, who was,
373
00:20:23,305 --> 00:20:26,308
one of the original astronauts,
was the flight.
374
00:20:26,350 --> 00:20:28,101
He was head of the flight control,
375
00:20:28,101 --> 00:20:31,104
flight directorate,
then a flight crew directorate.
376
00:20:31,563 --> 00:20:35,567
And so he said he said,
if you're ready to go, we're ready to go.
377
00:20:35,567 --> 00:20:39,571
And, And Lovell
said, we're ready to go. So.
378
00:20:40,530 --> 00:20:43,200
And, everything went well
379
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:46,703
until 55 hours
when our oxygen tank blew up. And,
380
00:20:47,996 --> 00:20:50,123
so, I, I had
381
00:20:50,123 --> 00:20:53,794
basically recovered from the measles,
and, John
382
00:20:53,794 --> 00:20:59,132
Young called me about 10:00 Houston time
when this accident happened and,
383
00:21:00,217 --> 00:21:04,346
said they have a big problem, and,
we got to go in and help out.
384
00:21:04,346 --> 00:21:09,726
So we went we showed up at Mission Control
about an hour after the accident.
385
00:21:09,726 --> 00:21:14,606
And if I remember we were there 35 hours,
386
00:21:16,233 --> 00:21:20,737
waiting, you know, trying to get it
ready, figure out how to get it back.
387
00:21:20,988 --> 00:21:25,993
And so, John, were John when,
we were in the lunar module simulator,
388
00:21:25,993 --> 00:21:28,996
figuring out all of the power up and,
389
00:21:29,204 --> 00:21:34,084
and then the, the burns that had to
we had to do the
390
00:21:34,167 --> 00:21:37,587
with the lunar module to get them back
on, free return.
391
00:21:38,255 --> 00:21:41,258
it was really a tense time, but,
392
00:21:41,383 --> 00:21:44,344
they did a good job, and, mission control
393
00:21:44,678 --> 00:21:49,182
came through with flying colors, like,
we they always do.
394
00:21:49,182 --> 00:21:52,477
And, so things got
395
00:21:53,687 --> 00:21:54,896
better and better.
396
00:21:54,896 --> 00:21:57,524
First 20 hours,
I said we're not going to make it.
397
00:21:57,524 --> 00:22:00,694
I was just about,
I didn't voice that to anybody, but
398
00:22:00,694 --> 00:22:04,573
you could see everything
running out about ten, you know?
399
00:22:04,573 --> 00:22:06,825
That's the oxygen.
400
00:22:06,825 --> 00:22:10,579
The scrubbers
with the CO2 and battery power
401
00:22:10,579 --> 00:22:15,042
and everything, running out
about ten hours before we got back.
402
00:22:15,042 --> 00:22:16,960
So we had to do something to make it last.
403
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:18,045
So we had to do something to make it last.
404
00:22:18,045 --> 00:22:24,134
And so we started shutting down systems
and leaving some all others off,
405
00:22:24,593 --> 00:22:30,140
and we shut down the environmental control
system, the cooler, the heating part.
406
00:22:30,140 --> 00:22:34,353
And they got really cold in there,
so but we got better at it.
407
00:22:34,353 --> 00:22:37,439
And so the, the curve flattened out.
408
00:22:38,231 --> 00:22:40,484
Now we're going to make it,
409
00:22:40,484 --> 00:22:43,070
if we don't have any other problem,
410
00:22:43,070 --> 00:22:46,073
we got we going, got all our stuff.
411
00:22:46,531 --> 00:22:49,201
It's going to run out ten hours
after we get back.
412
00:22:49,201 --> 00:22:52,954
So, and then everybody began
to relax a little bit,
413
00:22:53,205 --> 00:22:55,957
but then we didn't
want to make any mistakes.
414
00:22:55,957 --> 00:22:57,501
And so we were very keyed up.
415
00:22:58,835 --> 00:23:01,630
And and the interesting part of that story
416
00:23:01,630 --> 00:23:05,050
then is then Ken Mattingly ends up
flying to the moon with you
417
00:23:05,050 --> 00:23:08,261
then on your mission
because he got pulled from Apollo 13.
418
00:23:09,429 --> 00:23:12,432
That's a that's an interesting
turn of events then as well. So.
419
00:23:12,933 --> 00:23:15,143
Yeah, we started training,
420
00:23:15,143 --> 00:23:18,105
of course, after Apollo 13.
421
00:23:18,105 --> 00:23:22,192
He was there,
you know, with developing the procedures
422
00:23:22,192 --> 00:23:27,697
for the shut down of the command module
and then power up the command module.
423
00:23:27,948 --> 00:23:30,700
It was never designed
to shut down in space.
424
00:23:30,700 --> 00:23:33,036
And, so,
425
00:23:33,036 --> 00:23:36,456
the, the procedures that they did
and developed,
426
00:23:37,666 --> 00:23:38,959
to, to get the thing
427
00:23:38,959 --> 00:23:40,377
to, to get the thing
428
00:23:40,377 --> 00:23:43,422
working again was really remarkable.
429
00:23:43,630 --> 00:23:45,090
Yeah.
430
00:23:45,090 --> 00:23:48,260
So he owes, a there's a lot of
431
00:23:49,302 --> 00:23:53,557
a gratitude from the crew
to, Mattingly for,
432
00:23:53,765 --> 00:23:59,438
figuring out how to power that thing
back up again and, in minimum time,
433
00:24:00,689 --> 00:24:03,483
and, using minimum,
434
00:24:03,483 --> 00:24:06,486
minimum power.
435
00:24:07,571 --> 00:24:10,407
Wow. What a what a time like it feels.
436
00:24:10,407 --> 00:24:13,994
It feels like you had a pretty incredible
stint there at NASA.
437
00:24:14,035 --> 00:24:17,038
I mean you got to work on Apollo ten
which was the first time,
438
00:24:17,914 --> 00:24:19,249
the lunar module went to the moon.
439
00:24:19,249 --> 00:24:21,001
It wasn't a landing,
but it was a dress rehearsal.
440
00:24:21,001 --> 00:24:25,422
And then Apollo 11, you're the basically
the communications or Capcom while,
441
00:24:25,464 --> 00:24:28,967
you know, when when Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin land on the moon,
442
00:24:29,634 --> 00:24:33,805
you're back up on Apollo 13,
which is an infamous mission, you know,
443
00:24:33,805 --> 00:24:38,143
for how you all were able to successfully
bring those those men home.
444
00:24:39,352 --> 00:24:41,646
And then at that point,
I guess, is when you're chosen
445
00:24:41,646 --> 00:24:44,649
for Apollo 16, then.
446
00:24:45,150 --> 00:24:46,276
Yeah.
447
00:24:46,276 --> 00:24:49,279
That the rotation was back up
448
00:24:49,488 --> 00:24:52,574
and three flights later prime crew
if you'd fly.
449
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:54,910
So we were back up on 13.
450
00:24:54,910 --> 00:24:58,955
So we flew on 16 and then the only after
451
00:24:58,955 --> 00:25:01,958
that we got back from 16 and,
452
00:25:02,334 --> 00:25:05,587
they needed a backup
proof for Apollo 17. And,
453
00:25:06,671 --> 00:25:08,256
so I said,
454
00:25:08,256 --> 00:25:12,886
I started thinking, I said, John,
let's go volunteer for the backup for 17.
455
00:25:13,553 --> 00:25:16,556
He said, oh, it's a dead
end job in, you know, we,
456
00:25:19,851 --> 00:25:21,144
We just wasting our time.
457
00:25:21,144 --> 00:25:25,941
Six months of training again
and and and nothing after that.
458
00:25:26,024 --> 00:25:27,192
There's nothing.
459
00:25:27,192 --> 00:25:30,487
And I said John,
they might break their leg
460
00:25:30,487 --> 00:25:33,490
and, we get to go again.
461
00:25:33,907 --> 00:25:37,202
Well, I talked him into it, and, he, Yeah.
462
00:25:37,202 --> 00:25:39,663
That might be. So,
463
00:25:39,663 --> 00:25:39,788
That might be. So,
464
00:25:39,788 --> 00:25:43,875
so but they stayed healthy, and,
Mattingly didn't want to do it.
465
00:25:43,875 --> 00:25:48,004
So Stu Roosa, who was back up
on our flight command launch.
466
00:25:48,046 --> 00:25:52,551
Well, he came in and, he was my best
friend in the astronaut office,
467
00:25:52,551 --> 00:25:55,762
and we picked together from the same test
pilot School class.
468
00:25:56,721 --> 00:25:58,723
So we had good training to go.
469
00:25:58,723 --> 00:26:02,018
That was fun. And then after that,
470
00:26:03,728 --> 00:26:06,731
I got offered a job by NASA to go to,
471
00:26:08,316 --> 00:26:10,068
Washington as the,
472
00:26:10,068 --> 00:26:13,780
deputy administrator
there for legislative affairs,
473
00:26:14,155 --> 00:26:17,158
which was a fancy title for the,
474
00:26:18,827 --> 00:26:22,122
NASA lobbyist and, but,
475
00:26:23,331 --> 00:26:25,625
I'm married, to two years
476
00:26:25,625 --> 00:26:28,628
or through almost three years of,
477
00:26:28,962 --> 00:26:30,380
of traveling.
478
00:26:30,380 --> 00:26:33,883
So I won't do that
because our marriage was in trouble and,
479
00:26:34,884 --> 00:26:38,054
developing major problems in our marriage.
480
00:26:38,054 --> 00:26:41,057
So I turned it down.
481
00:26:41,683 --> 00:26:43,643
I, I had an offer to
482
00:26:43,643 --> 00:26:47,772
to go into politics,
back in South Carolina, but I changed my,
483
00:26:48,231 --> 00:26:50,859
I said I don't want to do that
either, because,
484
00:26:50,859 --> 00:26:53,862
so I stayed at NASA and started
working with the space shuttle
485
00:26:54,904 --> 00:26:56,531
for four years.
486
00:26:56,531 --> 00:26:57,240
Three years.
487
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,785
And that's an interesting
because John Young who
488
00:27:00,785 --> 00:27:04,039
you went to the moon with also stayed on
and worked on the space shuttle as well.
489
00:27:04,039 --> 00:27:05,498
He was the first space shuttle.
490
00:27:05,498 --> 00:27:05,874
He was the first space shuttle.
491
00:27:05,874 --> 00:27:07,083
Flight commander if I remember right.
492
00:27:07,083 --> 00:27:07,417
Flight commander if I remember right.
493
00:27:07,417 --> 00:27:08,209
That’s correct.
494
00:27:08,209 --> 00:27:10,045
And he flew two shuttles.
495
00:27:10,045 --> 00:27:12,589
He's the only guy who flew
three different spacecraft.
496
00:27:12,589 --> 00:27:13,965
He flew two Gemini, two Apollo and
497
00:27:16,217 --> 00:27:18,887
two shuttles and
498
00:27:18,887 --> 00:27:19,220
two shuttles and
499
00:27:19,763 --> 00:27:23,808
He was a tremendous engineer and pilot.
500
00:27:23,808 --> 00:27:26,811
It was fantastic.
501
00:27:28,521 --> 00:27:31,107
So I, I have to ask you this.
502
00:27:31,107 --> 00:27:34,653
So you're, we can go back to 1972.
503
00:27:34,986 --> 00:27:39,032
You know you're, you're inside the
spacecraft on the launch pad of Apollo 16.
504
00:27:39,616 --> 00:27:42,702
What's it like being on top of a 363ft
505
00:27:42,744 --> 00:27:47,082
tall rocket that weighs 6.5
million pounds, and that thing lights up.
506
00:27:47,082 --> 00:27:49,209
What's that like?
507
00:27:49,209 --> 00:27:52,003
Well, as you're strapped in
508
00:27:52,003 --> 00:27:55,965
and, laying there, you know, in your seat
509
00:27:55,965 --> 00:28:01,262
and the windows are covered over
so you can't see outside and,
510
00:28:03,223 --> 00:28:04,849
we had, you know, we trained,
511
00:28:04,849 --> 00:28:07,852
long time for this thing. And,
512
00:28:08,353 --> 00:28:11,356
so everybody's thought was keep counting.
513
00:28:11,356 --> 00:28:15,151
You know, you only had a four hour window
to get off,
514
00:28:15,902 --> 00:28:19,531
and if you didn't get off in that
four hours, you had to wait 30 days
515
00:28:20,407 --> 00:28:23,952
for the moon to come around back
into shape in the position.
516
00:28:25,161 --> 00:28:27,997
So if so.
517
00:28:27,997 --> 00:28:29,457
So they're counting down.
518
00:28:29,457 --> 00:28:31,793
And what
519
00:28:31,793 --> 00:28:31,835
And what
520
00:28:31,835 --> 00:28:35,755
you're not verbalizing it,
but what you're thinking about.
521
00:28:35,755 --> 00:28:38,049
Keep counting, keep counting,
keep counting.
522
00:28:38,049 --> 00:28:39,676
And I'm ready to go.
523
00:28:43,972 --> 00:28:46,683
And so your, focus was
524
00:28:47,350 --> 00:28:50,228
the scanning this systems
and flipping a switch.
525
00:28:50,228 --> 00:28:52,939
If Mission Control asked you to do so,
whatever.
526
00:28:52,939 --> 00:28:55,942
But mostly you were just laying there.
527
00:28:56,067 --> 00:28:57,986
Okay? Keep counting, keep counting.
528
00:28:57,986 --> 00:29:00,530
I'm ready to launch. And,
529
00:29:00,530 --> 00:29:03,241
And so when they lit the engines,
530
00:29:03,241 --> 00:29:08,496
you didn't hear anything
but the vibration was from side to side.
531
00:29:08,496 --> 00:29:11,458
Was pretty intense.
532
00:29:13,251 --> 00:29:16,254
And that lasted the whole first stage,
533
00:29:16,671 --> 00:29:20,091
from liftoff to shut down the first stage.
534
00:29:20,717 --> 00:29:24,429
And then that vibrate as it shut down
the first stage.
535
00:29:24,512 --> 00:29:28,391
It was more like, we called it
the train wreck because you were going
536
00:29:28,391 --> 00:29:32,937
from four and a half
GS to zero at a snap of a fingers. And,
537
00:29:34,022 --> 00:29:34,564
so it
538
00:29:34,564 --> 00:29:37,692
would,
if you, if you hadn't been in strapped
539
00:29:37,692 --> 00:29:40,695
in real tight, it would have thrown you
into the instrument panel.
540
00:29:41,154 --> 00:29:44,657
And, so, we were prepared for that.
541
00:29:44,657 --> 00:29:48,870
And then after that second stage,
third stage, it was real smooth.
542
00:29:49,662 --> 00:29:51,623
No, no vibration.
543
00:29:51,623 --> 00:29:56,252
And, you just watch the the instruments
544
00:29:56,252 --> 00:30:02,050
and the your velocities counting up
and the first, the second stage shut down.
545
00:30:02,091 --> 00:30:03,426
You're still not in orbit.
546
00:30:03,426 --> 00:30:06,471
So you you, you light
547
00:30:06,471 --> 00:30:11,976
the third stage, and it takes you into
orbit, and Apollo is 100 miles
548
00:30:11,976 --> 00:30:14,938
above the Earth, and you stay attached
549
00:30:14,938 --> 00:30:17,941
to the third stage until,
550
00:30:18,191 --> 00:30:21,694
you get ready to, ignite it again on.
551
00:30:21,694 --> 00:30:24,656
And that puts you out of Earth orbit
on the way to the moon.
552
00:30:24,948 --> 00:30:26,783
And that was usually,
553
00:30:28,243 --> 00:30:30,995
you'd go around one and a half times.
554
00:30:30,995 --> 00:30:35,917
So for us, we were over Australia,
it depending on where you wanted
555
00:30:35,917 --> 00:30:39,587
to land on the moon, but we were over
Australia when we left Earth orbit.
556
00:30:39,838 --> 00:30:41,923
And by this time, the wind was uncovered.
557
00:30:41,923 --> 00:30:44,968
So you you're looking out
and seeing beautiful oceans
558
00:30:44,968 --> 00:30:48,805
and, land masses and, but you're busy.
559
00:30:49,013 --> 00:30:51,808
Yeah. So you don't have much time to view.
560
00:30:51,808 --> 00:30:54,811
So once we got going to the moon,
561
00:30:55,353 --> 00:30:57,230
my job was to copy things
562
00:30:57,230 --> 00:31:00,233
down from mission control, and,
563
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,570
so I was in my seat,
and I was looking out the right window.
564
00:31:03,570 --> 00:31:06,573
There was a window just on my right.
565
00:31:06,614 --> 00:31:09,868
And it was a, and,
566
00:31:11,077 --> 00:31:15,540
so if Mattingly maneuvered the spacecraft,
the Earth floated into my window
567
00:31:15,540 --> 00:31:19,335
over there and there
it was out there, about 20,000 miles away.
568
00:31:19,335 --> 00:31:22,797
And, it’s just this, Beautiful
569
00:31:22,797 --> 00:31:25,800
jewel of blue and white and brown,
570
00:31:26,301 --> 00:31:30,430
the earth, he you
you see these artist's conceptions
571
00:31:30,430 --> 00:31:34,684
of the earth painted the earth,
but the earth had no green.
572
00:31:34,684 --> 00:31:36,311
It was all brown.
573
00:31:36,311 --> 00:31:40,356
Of course, it was wintertime, and North
America was what we were looking at.
574
00:31:41,065 --> 00:31:44,319
And, so you, you could see Greenland
575
00:31:44,819 --> 00:31:48,948
up the North Pole, down across Canada,
and it was mostly under snow.
576
00:31:49,574 --> 00:31:52,869
Then you got down to the Rocky Mountains
and the West Coast.
577
00:31:52,869 --> 00:31:54,704
You could see in the Rocky Mountains
and on into the central,
578
00:31:54,704 --> 00:31:56,581
central, western, United States.
579
00:31:56,581 --> 00:31:59,042
And it was all free of clouds.
580
00:31:59,042 --> 00:32:01,878
And then down across Mexico
and down to Central
581
00:32:01,878 --> 00:32:04,881
America was the view of the land we had.
582
00:32:05,131 --> 00:32:08,384
And, three colors,
you know, the blue of the oceans,
583
00:32:08,384 --> 00:32:12,096
the brown of the land
and the crystal white of the
584
00:32:13,181 --> 00:32:14,223
snow.
585
00:32:14,223 --> 00:32:17,435
And there's a jewel of earth
just suspended out there
586
00:32:17,435 --> 00:32:19,437
in the blackness of space.
587
00:32:19,437 --> 00:32:22,440
I wasn't a Christian then, and I didn’t,
588
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:24,609
So I didn't know no scripture well.
589
00:32:24,609 --> 00:32:29,405
But later on, when I became a believer
and, began to study
590
00:32:29,572 --> 00:32:32,575
and read the scripture and absorb it,
591
00:32:32,825 --> 00:32:37,664
like in the Old Testament, two verses
that describe exactly what I saw.
592
00:32:37,664 --> 00:32:41,751
And it says, when God made the earth,
he suspended it upon nothing.
593
00:32:42,418 --> 00:32:44,128
And that's exactly what it looks like.
594
00:32:44,128 --> 00:32:45,755
It is suspended up.
595
00:32:45,755 --> 00:32:49,884
And the other verse was, God sits
enthroned above the circle of the earth.
596
00:32:50,843 --> 00:32:52,595
And, and
597
00:32:52,595 --> 00:32:56,641
of course, there you didn't see God,
but I saw the circle of the earth. And,
598
00:32:57,684 --> 00:33:00,395
and, and the...
599
00:33:00,395 --> 00:33:03,398
I mean, you could tell it’s a ball,
600
00:33:03,815 --> 00:33:06,693
hung out in the blackness of space
and how anybody can,
601
00:33:06,693 --> 00:33:10,321
after seeing these pictures,
how anybody can think it's a flat earth.
602
00:33:11,072 --> 00:33:14,158
It's a beyond reason to me.
603
00:33:14,325 --> 00:33:16,995
It's just willfully ignorant.
604
00:33:16,995 --> 00:33:19,497
I guess.
605
00:33:19,497 --> 00:33:19,789
Yeah.
606
00:33:19,789 --> 00:33:22,792
That's that's really something like you
607
00:33:23,710 --> 00:33:26,838
you've done, you basically did a mission
608
00:33:26,879 --> 00:33:31,801
I think only 12 other or 12 men in total
walked on the surface of the moon.
609
00:33:32,510 --> 00:33:34,178
And you're, you're one of those, you know.
610
00:33:34,178 --> 00:33:36,431
And that must have
611
00:33:36,431 --> 00:33:39,517
just been
it must have felt like such an honor.
612
00:33:39,517 --> 00:33:40,101
And a privilege
613
00:33:40,101 --> 00:33:43,980
that that you were in just the just
the right place to be able to do that.
614
00:33:44,981 --> 00:33:45,523
And a
615
00:33:45,523 --> 00:33:48,526
lot of work to obviously, to,
to get to that point.
616
00:33:48,609 --> 00:33:52,447
Well, it was and, but I it was a
great honor, no question about it.
617
00:33:52,447 --> 00:33:55,742
You know, there were 27 seats to the moon.
618
00:33:56,451 --> 00:33:59,162
Nine missions that went to the moon.
619
00:33:59,162 --> 00:34:01,247
So there's three guys in each mission.
620
00:34:01,247 --> 00:34:03,541
That's 27 seats.
621
00:34:03,541 --> 00:34:06,127
But three guys went twice,
622
00:34:06,127 --> 00:34:09,422
so there's only 24 of us
that went to the moon
623
00:34:09,422 --> 00:34:14,927
out of a group of 42 astronauts
that were available in those days.
624
00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:17,555
And so, it was a great honor.
625
00:34:17,555 --> 00:34:20,266
And, I just,
626
00:34:20,266 --> 00:34:23,144
looking back now, just,
627
00:34:23,144 --> 00:34:25,772
how fortunate I was.
628
00:34:25,772 --> 00:34:25,938
how fortunate I was.
629
00:34:25,938 --> 00:34:28,858
And, I got a prophecy, once
630
00:34:28,858 --> 00:34:32,862
I became a believer, says
God is, I have guided your every step.
631
00:34:33,321 --> 00:34:36,908
And, I can see that now that God gave me
632
00:34:36,908 --> 00:34:40,953
this experience,
and, Opportunity to share it and,
633
00:34:42,038 --> 00:34:43,915
of the wonders of the creation
634
00:34:43,915 --> 00:34:47,043
and the beauty of the of the universe and,
635
00:34:48,086 --> 00:34:51,672
Earth and the moon and all of that.
636
00:34:51,672 --> 00:34:54,884
And, just to have an opportunity to,
637
00:34:55,843 --> 00:34:58,721
that this there's there it is.
638
00:34:58,721 --> 00:34:59,680
And you know it.
639
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,683
We have this,
640
00:35:03,184 --> 00:35:06,896
view that Apollo gave us of the
of the Earth.
641
00:35:06,896 --> 00:35:10,483
And, of course,
the satellites have taken pictures
642
00:35:10,483 --> 00:35:13,069
of it, but,
643
00:35:13,069 --> 00:35:13,486
of it, but,
644
00:35:13,569 --> 00:35:15,738
but it's,
645
00:35:15,738 --> 00:35:17,782
seeing it for real
646
00:35:17,782 --> 00:35:20,493
just suspended in the blackness of space.
647
00:35:20,493 --> 00:35:20,701
Okay.
648
00:35:20,701 --> 00:35:24,539
When we came around, we went in the earth,
or, I mean, the lunar orbit.
649
00:35:24,539 --> 00:35:27,959
And we came around
from the backside of the moon,
650
00:35:27,959 --> 00:35:31,087
and we had the first Earthrise,
and there it came up
651
00:35:31,838 --> 00:35:35,591
into into the window of the spacecraft.
652
00:35:35,591 --> 00:35:37,760
And to be honest, my, it was beautiful.
653
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:40,805
But my first thought was,
we're a long way from home.
654
00:35:40,805 --> 00:35:42,974
I hope this spacecraft holds together.
655
00:35:48,104 --> 00:35:50,565
245,000 miles.
656
00:35:50,565 --> 00:35:52,400
Well, it it varies.
657
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,069
You know,
the moon does not have a circular orbit,
658
00:35:55,069 --> 00:35:58,781
so it's an elliptical orbit,
and it gets comes in the closest
659
00:35:58,781 --> 00:36:02,702
like 212 and farther like 250 away. So.
660
00:36:02,827 --> 00:36:03,661
Okay.
661
00:36:03,661 --> 00:36:06,664
That's a long ways.
662
00:36:06,956 --> 00:36:08,166
Really long ways.
663
00:36:08,166 --> 00:36:08,207
Really long ways.
664
00:36:08,207 --> 00:36:11,210
So that that brings up
an interesting point
665
00:36:11,335 --> 00:36:12,128
for me in it.
666
00:36:12,128 --> 00:36:13,588
And I never thought about this till.
667
00:36:13,588 --> 00:36:16,966
So I actually I got your book, which
I encourage anyone listening to this.
668
00:36:17,008 --> 00:36:18,509
Check it out. It's called Moonwalker.
669
00:36:18,509 --> 00:36:21,220
We'll have a link down below
if people can go check it out.
670
00:36:21,220 --> 00:36:22,138
It's fascinating read.
671
00:36:22,138 --> 00:36:27,101
But, you go through the mission,
your time at NASA, you go, you land
672
00:36:27,101 --> 00:36:30,104
on the moon, you walk on the moon,
you get to drive on the moon.
673
00:36:30,104 --> 00:36:32,857
Just really incredible experience.
You come home.
674
00:36:32,857 --> 00:36:33,900
Everything went well.
675
00:36:34,901 --> 00:36:37,195
And after that,
676
00:36:37,195 --> 00:36:39,697
chapter 24 of your book is titled,
677
00:36:39,697 --> 00:36:42,575
How Do You Top a Flight to the Moon?
678
00:36:42,575 --> 00:36:44,493
Is the title of that chapter. And that.
679
00:36:44,493 --> 00:36:46,162
That really struck me.
680
00:36:46,162 --> 00:36:47,455
How do you top that?
681
00:36:47,455 --> 00:36:48,623
It's like, that's kind of the pinnacle,
682
00:36:48,623 --> 00:36:51,626
but yet you now have the rest of your life
in front of you.
683
00:36:51,876 --> 00:36:53,836
What what was it like when you came back?
684
00:36:53,836 --> 00:36:56,380
And then it was kind
of this process of like, well, what next?
685
00:36:56,380 --> 00:36:58,674
Like, what do I do now?
686
00:36:58,674 --> 00:37:01,677
Well until Apollo was over
we were all busy.
687
00:37:02,970 --> 00:37:05,431
You know, I, I've done 13
688
00:37:05,431 --> 00:37:09,310
and 16 and 17, and so I was busy.
689
00:37:09,310 --> 00:37:13,981
But then after Apollo was over
in December of 72, that's when it hit me.
690
00:37:14,190 --> 00:37:15,816
You know, now what and,
691
00:37:16,943 --> 00:37:18,361
so I, as I said earlier,
692
00:37:18,361 --> 00:37:22,156
I turned down a job, to NASA
the headquarters.
693
00:37:22,156 --> 00:37:25,493
I turned down a political, opportunity.
694
00:37:25,493 --> 00:37:28,829
I could have been a congressman
from South Carolina and,
695
00:37:30,373 --> 00:37:31,332
turn that down.
696
00:37:31,332 --> 00:37:33,084
And so,
697
00:37:33,084 --> 00:37:35,419
and so a lot of us had that problem,
698
00:37:35,419 --> 00:37:38,422
you know,
how are you going to top this? And,
699
00:37:38,798 --> 00:37:43,803
so I decided to stay working at NASA,
and that was very frustrating.
700
00:37:43,803 --> 00:37:45,638
The shuttle was just getting started.
701
00:37:45,638 --> 00:37:49,100
And, so
I was working on a shuttle operations
702
00:37:49,100 --> 00:37:54,021
and doing budgets and stuff like that was,
it was a challenging job and,
703
00:37:54,355 --> 00:37:57,358
put my all into it, but it wasn't the,
704
00:37:58,651 --> 00:38:01,654
it wasn't the fulfilling,
705
00:38:02,613 --> 00:38:06,242
career that, that we'd had at, in Apollo.
706
00:38:07,034 --> 00:38:09,036
So I started looking around for something
to do.
707
00:38:09,036 --> 00:38:12,039
And a lot of those people,
a lot of the Moonwalkers
708
00:38:12,415 --> 00:38:15,418
decided to go into business,
They left NASA,
709
00:38:15,501 --> 00:38:18,337
they decided to go into business
710
00:38:18,337 --> 00:38:24,510
of some sort and...
711
00:38:24,510 --> 00:38:28,889
Mattingly went back to the Navy, and and,
712
00:38:29,432 --> 00:38:33,311
I went, I stayed at NASA
for 4 more, let's see, from
713
00:38:37,565 --> 00:38:40,568
72, end of 72 to the beginning of 76.
714
00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:44,739
And, finally I decided that,
you know, maybe
715
00:38:45,531 --> 00:38:49,076
money is the answer,
or maybe I can get this frustration and,
716
00:38:49,702 --> 00:38:53,664
you know, the sky's
the limit with a fortune, and you can work
717
00:38:53,664 --> 00:38:55,041
and you keep making more.
718
00:38:55,041 --> 00:38:58,336
And that's going to give me satisfaction
that,
719
00:38:59,086 --> 00:39:02,256
I tried that, I left NASA in 76
720
00:39:02,256 --> 00:39:05,384
and, was a successful businessman.
721
00:39:06,218 --> 00:39:09,388
I was a Coors beer distributor,
one of three astronaut,
722
00:39:09,388 --> 00:39:12,892
three Apollo astronauts
became Coors beer distributors.
723
00:39:13,726 --> 00:39:18,022
And it was a very lucrative career
as a business man.
724
00:39:18,022 --> 00:39:19,231
But I was I was I, it was really great.
725
00:39:19,231 --> 00:39:21,150
But I was I was I, it was really great.
726
00:39:21,442 --> 00:39:25,529
Like Apollo
getting it organized and staffed and and,
727
00:39:26,447 --> 00:39:29,784
challenging the,
you know, financed and all of that.
728
00:39:30,409 --> 00:39:32,912
And, but then after that, it was,
729
00:39:34,288 --> 00:39:35,998
you know,
730
00:39:35,998 --> 00:39:37,166
now what do you do?
731
00:39:37,166 --> 00:39:40,920
You sit there and you,
you know, drink beer, you know, that was,
732
00:39:42,088 --> 00:39:44,423
so I sold out after about two years.
733
00:39:44,423 --> 00:39:47,551
I sold out and we had,
734
00:39:49,887 --> 00:39:51,430
marriage was, really
735
00:39:51,430 --> 00:39:56,310
if you, as you read the book,
is, was really going downhill fast, and,
736
00:39:57,103 --> 00:40:00,106
Dotty had thoughts of suicide and,
737
00:40:00,731 --> 00:40:04,527
she developed, such a depression that was,
738
00:40:05,069 --> 00:40:09,740
if this is all there is to life
and I'm so miserable, why live any longer.
739
00:40:10,449 --> 00:40:13,202
And so she plotted out a way
740
00:40:13,202 --> 00:40:16,789
she was going to commit suicide,
car accident.
741
00:40:17,998 --> 00:40:21,627
But, we were in church,
the whole time and,
742
00:40:22,711 --> 00:40:26,882
baptized and confirmed, and,
you know, all you can do in church.
743
00:40:26,882 --> 00:40:31,011
But Jesus was in here in my head
instead of in my heart.
744
00:40:31,220 --> 00:40:34,223
And, and same with Dotty. So,
745
00:40:35,433 --> 00:40:38,436
and, so we,
746
00:40:41,856 --> 00:40:44,275
We were, she was searching, you know.
747
00:40:44,275 --> 00:40:47,069
Is this all there is to life?
748
00:40:47,069 --> 00:40:50,072
My marriage is falling apart, and,
749
00:40:50,531 --> 00:40:52,074
kids are,
750
00:40:52,074 --> 00:40:53,367
growing up.
751
00:40:53,367 --> 00:40:56,370
Maybe they don't need me anymore. So,
752
00:40:57,413 --> 00:40:58,038
anyway.
753
00:40:58,038 --> 00:41:01,041
But we were at the Episcopal Church, and,
754
00:41:01,917 --> 00:41:02,793
going to Episcopal.
755
00:41:02,793 --> 00:41:05,754
This was still in Houston. And,
756
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,133
we were going to this Episcopal church
in Laporte, Texas.
757
00:41:09,133 --> 00:41:11,177
And in October of.
758
00:41:11,177 --> 00:41:14,472
No. Yeah, October of 1975,
759
00:41:14,472 --> 00:41:17,475
they had a weekend called Faith Alive.
760
00:41:18,225 --> 00:41:19,935
And, it was very popular
761
00:41:19,935 --> 00:41:21,437
And, it was very popular
762
00:41:21,437 --> 00:41:24,648
in certain denominations
back in those days.
763
00:41:25,524 --> 00:41:26,901
And what Faith Alive is.
764
00:41:26,901 --> 00:41:30,237
Some people come to your church and, ten
765
00:41:30,237 --> 00:41:33,866
couples or so, and they share their faith,
766
00:41:33,866 --> 00:41:36,911
they share their testimony
how God has changed their marriage.
767
00:41:36,911 --> 00:41:39,914
How God changed their life and,
768
00:41:40,164 --> 00:41:41,874
peace and assurance
769
00:41:41,874 --> 00:41:45,961
and all of these
things that, knowing Jesus,
770
00:41:47,630 --> 00:41:49,507
intimately
771
00:41:49,507 --> 00:41:49,673
intimately
772
00:41:49,673 --> 00:41:51,383
has for you.
773
00:41:51,383 --> 00:41:54,386
And so, after that weekend was over,
774
00:41:56,347 --> 00:41:58,682
Dotty went and went home
775
00:41:58,682 --> 00:42:01,685
and into our bedroom and,
776
00:42:01,936 --> 00:42:05,189
said, a prayer said, Lord,
I've tried everything
777
00:42:05,189 --> 00:42:09,902
but Jesus, Lord, if you are real,
I give you my life.
778
00:42:09,902 --> 00:42:12,571
If you're not real, I want to die.
779
00:42:12,571 --> 00:42:14,657
Well, over the next two months,
I watched her
780
00:42:14,657 --> 00:42:17,660
change from sadness to Joy, and,
781
00:42:18,327 --> 00:42:19,620
it was amazing.
782
00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:22,623
And by this time,
783
00:42:22,790 --> 00:42:25,793
we were we were leaving NASA,
784
00:42:26,877 --> 00:42:29,880
was the end of 1975,
785
00:42:30,047 --> 00:42:32,383
and we moved to, New Braunfels,
786
00:42:32,383 --> 00:42:35,386
Texas, and I opened, started
787
00:42:35,761 --> 00:42:37,721
working on opening this business.
788
00:42:37,721 --> 00:42:41,642
And 3 or 4 months later,
we had it ready to go, and we opened up
789
00:42:42,518 --> 00:42:45,521
and, I was at the,
790
00:42:45,563 --> 00:42:47,356
Faith Alive.
791
00:42:47,356 --> 00:42:51,986
But I was thinking about not about Jesus,
but about my business.
792
00:42:51,986 --> 00:42:54,488
And my mind was wandering,
793
00:42:56,365 --> 00:42:59,994
so, and but I watched Dotty
794
00:42:59,994 --> 00:43:03,330
change and, over the next six months and,
795
00:43:04,415 --> 00:43:09,003
she began to be a different wife and, and,
796
00:43:10,254 --> 00:43:13,257
so and, I never,
797
00:43:14,300 --> 00:43:17,303
I guess I never thought about,
798
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:20,931
and I could she told me it was Jesus.
799
00:43:21,890 --> 00:43:25,311
And Jesus is first in my life now
and not you.
800
00:43:25,936 --> 00:43:30,858
And, and, he's always with me,
and I'm not leaving.
801
00:43:30,858 --> 00:43:34,778
We were like, she's going to work it out.
802
00:43:35,821 --> 00:43:37,781
And, so,
803
00:43:37,781 --> 00:43:40,784
for two years, she just loved me and,
804
00:43:41,452 --> 00:43:44,330
and supported me in whatever I did.
805
00:43:44,330 --> 00:43:48,292
We were in church together, but,
and she was really committed,
806
00:43:49,376 --> 00:43:52,880
and, didn't it didn't affect me.
807
00:43:53,422 --> 00:43:55,841
I enjoyed our relationship.
808
00:43:55,841 --> 00:43:58,844
I knew we weren't going to get divorced,
but, I was,
809
00:43:59,928 --> 00:44:03,557
not the husband
I should've been, but she was accepted me
810
00:44:03,557 --> 00:44:07,311
as who I was, and and followed
what Jesus said.
811
00:44:07,311 --> 00:44:08,896
Loved your wife.
812
00:44:08,896 --> 00:44:13,192
I mean, loved your husband
and submit to your husband. And,
813
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,363
so, as she did that,
814
00:44:17,655 --> 00:44:20,658
I received it. And,
815
00:44:20,866 --> 00:44:22,701
so I got very frustrated
816
00:44:22,701 --> 00:44:26,455
after about a year and a half in the beer
business, I was real frustrated,
817
00:44:27,706 --> 00:44:32,169
and made a lot of money, but
I still frustrated and so maybe out of it,
818
00:44:32,211 --> 00:44:35,547
maybe out of new business,
maybe it was a new business.
819
00:44:35,547 --> 00:44:38,092
So I decided to sell out,
820
00:44:38,092 --> 00:44:40,636
and I says,
821
00:44:40,636 --> 00:44:44,473
Dotty saw the frustration and she said,
why don't you pray about it
822
00:44:44,473 --> 00:44:47,476
and see if God wants you
in the beer business so
823
00:44:47,810 --> 00:44:48,060
well?
824
00:44:48,060 --> 00:44:50,688
I didn't even know how to voice a prayer.
825
00:44:50,688 --> 00:44:54,650
I was Episcopal and you read prayers
out of the prayer book, and
826
00:44:55,192 --> 00:44:57,361
there was nothing in her prayer book
that said,
827
00:44:57,361 --> 00:44:59,697
do you want Charlie
in the beer business? And so
828
00:45:00,739 --> 00:45:03,742
I said, well, Dotty you pray?
829
00:45:04,034 --> 00:45:06,328
So she prayed a short prayer says, God,
if you want Charlie in the beer business,
830
00:45:06,328 --> 00:45:08,330
So she prayed a short prayer says, God,
if you want Charlie in the beer business,
831
00:45:08,330 --> 00:45:10,457
give him peace,
if you don't want him in the beer
832
00:45:10,457 --> 00:45:13,460
business makes him so miserable
that he sells out.
833
00:45:15,045 --> 00:45:18,173
So, the over the next
834
00:45:18,173 --> 00:45:21,260
that was in, like, January or so and,
835
00:45:22,678 --> 00:45:24,471
and about over,
836
00:45:24,471 --> 00:45:29,810
it was about a six month and,
and it got worse and worse in the beer
837
00:45:29,810 --> 00:45:32,813
business, but the money got better
and better and better.
838
00:45:33,522 --> 00:45:36,650
So was I going to chase the money or chase
the peace?
839
00:45:37,317 --> 00:45:40,738
And I decided to sell the business
and and,
840
00:45:42,156 --> 00:45:43,907
and, made a lot of money
841
00:45:43,907 --> 00:45:46,910
when we sold out and,
842
00:45:47,327 --> 00:45:51,749
When I sold out,
I just had just peace and, and I was,
843
00:45:53,292 --> 00:45:54,793
searching for something to do.
844
00:45:54,793 --> 00:46:00,340
And that was in March of 76
and no March of 78
845
00:46:01,467 --> 00:46:04,136
and, then,
846
00:46:04,136 --> 00:46:07,139
a month later,
847
00:46:07,514 --> 00:46:09,641
this really good friend of mine
848
00:46:09,641 --> 00:46:12,770
from our church
invited me to a Bible study.
849
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,691
In fact, it was for couples,
so Dotty came, it was called A Walk
850
00:46:17,691 --> 00:46:18,442
Through the Bible.
851
00:46:18,442 --> 00:46:21,820
And it was the study of Jesus
from Genesis to Revelation.
852
00:46:21,820 --> 00:46:25,240
How He’s revealed in Scripture, and so I,
853
00:46:25,657 --> 00:46:28,327
I didn't want to go,
you know, a whole weekend.
854
00:46:28,327 --> 00:46:31,371
How do you study the Bible
a whole weekend, boring.
855
00:46:31,371 --> 00:46:35,125
And, you know, and that that was my
that was my thought.
856
00:46:35,125 --> 00:46:37,336
But it turned out it wasn't boring.
857
00:46:37,336 --> 00:46:40,005
It was really interesting. And,
858
00:46:40,005 --> 00:46:40,047
It was really interesting. And,
859
00:46:40,047 --> 00:46:42,424
so I, I really began to form
860
00:46:42,424 --> 00:46:45,803
this, this, these thoughts that, you know,
861
00:46:47,012 --> 00:46:49,389
this is either true
862
00:46:49,389 --> 00:46:52,935
about who Jesus is, and I’ll
just give you two,
863
00:46:53,685 --> 00:46:56,647
two scriptures are stuck in my mind.
864
00:46:56,980 --> 00:47:00,984
One was in John 3:16
that everybody knows is this Christian,
865
00:47:00,984 --> 00:47:04,029
that for God so loved the world
that he gave his only son?
866
00:47:04,029 --> 00:47:05,948
If he.
867
00:47:05,948 --> 00:47:10,077
And if you believe in him, he will not
perish but have everlasting life
868
00:47:10,786 --> 00:47:13,789
and the thought occurred to me, that’s
either true or big lie,
869
00:47:14,748 --> 00:47:17,709
it's got to be true, or it's it's a lie.
870
00:47:17,918 --> 00:47:20,879
It is very positive statement.
871
00:47:20,879 --> 00:47:20,921
It is very positive statement.
872
00:47:21,046 --> 00:47:23,215
And in John's gospel, again,
873
00:47:23,215 --> 00:47:26,218
it's Jesus says in 14th chapter.
874
00:47:27,386 --> 00:47:29,638
I am the way, the truth and the life
875
00:47:29,638 --> 00:47:33,392
and no man comes to God except through me.
876
00:47:34,685 --> 00:47:37,688
Yeah,
he either spoke to truth or he lied to us.
877
00:47:38,230 --> 00:47:42,401
And, so and we have a free
will, and we get to decide.
878
00:47:43,694 --> 00:47:47,656
So God
presents the truth in the scriptures.
879
00:47:48,115 --> 00:47:50,951
Do we receive it or we reject it?
880
00:47:50,951 --> 00:47:52,786
That's the choice.
881
00:47:52,786 --> 00:47:55,789
And so after that weekend,
882
00:47:56,206 --> 00:47:59,167
there was no doubt in my mind
it was the truth.
883
00:47:59,835 --> 00:48:04,631
And so I and sitting in my car,
I asked Jesus.
884
00:48:04,631 --> 00:48:07,634
I said, this was in that Sunday afternoon.
885
00:48:08,343 --> 00:48:11,054
And I said, Jesus, come into my life.
886
00:48:11,054 --> 00:48:14,349
And for the very first time in my life,
I experience the peace of God.
887
00:48:14,349 --> 00:48:17,019
I mean, it was tremendous peace.
888
00:48:17,019 --> 00:48:20,522
And I knew that I knew that I knew
I'd made the right decision.
889
00:48:21,648 --> 00:48:24,818
And, as time went on,
890
00:48:25,694 --> 00:48:28,697
I just had this insatiable desire
to read the Bible,
891
00:48:29,156 --> 00:48:33,869
and I didn't have an 8 to 5 job anymore
because I'd sold the company. And,
892
00:48:35,203 --> 00:48:36,246
but we had
893
00:48:36,246 --> 00:48:40,959
money to live on, and I was doing some Air
Force work, and,
894
00:48:42,044 --> 00:48:47,049
anyway, I just consumed the Bible,
and I was probably reading
895
00:48:48,175 --> 00:48:50,636
to Old Testament, to New Testament,
896
00:48:50,636 --> 00:48:53,680
five Psalms and one Proverbs every day.
897
00:48:55,140 --> 00:48:58,393
So, as I was reading,
898
00:48:59,186 --> 00:49:03,231
I didn't understand it all, but, God, just
I just keep reading.
899
00:49:03,231 --> 00:49:04,399
Keep reading.
900
00:49:04,399 --> 00:49:09,071
And God began to reveal the truth
more and more of the truth to me.
901
00:49:09,071 --> 00:49:12,741
Of, what he expected of us
and I call it now,
902
00:49:14,660 --> 00:49:16,119
there's like a flight manual.
903
00:49:16,119 --> 00:49:19,247
It's, it's God's manual for life.
904
00:49:19,915 --> 00:49:22,501
And, and so if we follow
905
00:49:22,501 --> 00:49:25,712
the manual, things really work out
pretty good,
906
00:49:26,046 --> 00:49:29,049
and I learned from being a fighter pilot
907
00:49:29,508 --> 00:49:31,677
and a test pilot and an astronaut.
908
00:49:31,677 --> 00:49:36,515
That if you don't read the manual,
you can kill yourself in a hurry. So,
909
00:49:36,848 --> 00:49:39,977
so, the, the manual for me now is.
910
00:49:40,018 --> 00:49:43,021
And since that time
has been the Bible, and,
911
00:49:43,647 --> 00:49:46,984
so as I was reading the scriptures,
God began
912
00:49:46,984 --> 00:49:49,987
and, you know, when I became a Christian,
I didn’t even feel like a sinner,
913
00:49:50,195 --> 00:49:53,448
I mean, I had nothing crushing on my
914
00:49:54,574 --> 00:49:56,785
in my memory and said,
915
00:49:56,785 --> 00:49:59,788
oh my God, why did I do that? And,
916
00:50:00,122 --> 00:50:03,667
but, as I read the scriptures,
the God began to convict me.
917
00:50:03,667 --> 00:50:06,586
And first one was in Ephesians,
918
00:50:06,586 --> 00:50:09,339
husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the church
919
00:50:09,339 --> 00:50:12,300
and gave Himself up for her.
920
00:50:12,592 --> 00:50:16,054
And that really hit me.
921
00:50:17,931 --> 00:50:20,767
I can't say I heard an audible voice,
922
00:50:20,767 --> 00:50:25,480
but I had an impression of the Holy Spirit
says, you don’t love your wife that way.
923
00:50:25,856 --> 00:50:28,942
And the first problem
with your marriage is you.
924
00:50:30,235 --> 00:50:30,819
And so I
925
00:50:30,819 --> 00:50:34,239
repented and went to Dotty,
and we began to work on our marriage.
926
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:37,868
And I began to ask God
to show me how to love my wife.
927
00:50:38,869 --> 00:50:41,663
And now, you know,
928
00:50:41,663 --> 00:50:46,126
as the 1978, we still following the Lord,
still married,
929
00:50:46,209 --> 00:50:49,212
and, last 61 years and,
930
00:50:49,921 --> 00:50:53,091
and it's husbands love your wives
as Christ loved the church.
931
00:50:54,259 --> 00:50:56,762
So I was convicted by scripture
932
00:50:56,762 --> 00:51:01,099
and then the next one
was, over in Proverbs,
933
00:51:01,391 --> 00:51:04,394
we have the power of life and death
on our tongue.
934
00:51:04,978 --> 00:51:07,898
And and God spoke to my heart and says,
935
00:51:07,898 --> 00:51:10,859
you have cursed your own sons.
936
00:51:10,859 --> 00:51:12,486
And I don't mean profanity.
937
00:51:12,486 --> 00:51:14,446
I mean, you're dumb.
938
00:51:14,446 --> 00:51:15,906
You're stupid. You're out.
939
00:51:15,906 --> 00:51:17,282
You're not doing it right.
940
00:51:17,282 --> 00:51:22,245
And I was on them all the time, and
they were becoming exactly who I spoke.
941
00:51:22,746 --> 00:51:24,039
And so God says,
942
00:51:25,290 --> 00:51:28,043
you've spoken death into your sons.
943
00:51:28,043 --> 00:51:30,962
You've cursed your own children.
944
00:51:30,962 --> 00:51:35,008
And so, I mean, I was in tears,
I went to the boys
945
00:51:35,008 --> 00:51:38,011
and and repented and said,
946
00:51:39,554 --> 00:51:40,263
forgive me.
947
00:51:40,263 --> 00:51:42,474
I want to be
the dad that God wants me to be.
948
00:51:42,474 --> 00:51:46,770
And we began to work on our relationship
and broke the curses
949
00:51:46,770 --> 00:51:51,441
that were on them from the words
I had spoken, and began to encourage them.
950
00:51:51,441 --> 00:51:56,029
And and, bless them and learn
951
00:51:56,029 --> 00:51:59,241
how to discipline them correctly. And,
952
00:52:00,659 --> 00:52:03,286
and then the third big thing in
953
00:52:03,286 --> 00:52:06,289
my life was money. And,
954
00:52:06,456 --> 00:52:08,500
and, Malachi says,
955
00:52:08,500 --> 00:52:11,503
God says you're you're robbing me. And,
956
00:52:12,963 --> 00:52:17,008
and then it goes on to explain how we're
robbing God, by tithes and offerings.
957
00:52:17,050 --> 00:52:20,345
We're not bringing
the full share into the Lord.
958
00:52:21,471 --> 00:52:24,307
So, we began to give
959
00:52:24,307 --> 00:52:27,894
and, a tithe at least.
960
00:52:27,894 --> 00:52:33,358
And, I'll tell you
now, 60, at 61 years of marriage
961
00:52:33,358 --> 00:52:37,070
and at 89 years old, you can’t out
give God.
962
00:52:38,655 --> 00:52:40,282
As you give, He gives.
963
00:52:40,282 --> 00:52:44,202
And, so it’s been a great ride.
964
00:52:44,202 --> 00:52:46,955
We got started doing evangelistic work.
965
00:52:46,955 --> 00:52:50,167
We did, spawned Duke Ministry for Christ.
966
00:52:50,167 --> 00:52:55,088
And, we’ve been in counseling
people and marriage counseling, and,
967
00:52:55,964 --> 00:52:58,383
we accept invitations to various
968
00:52:58,383 --> 00:53:03,763
churches and, but we got involved
with full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship
969
00:53:03,763 --> 00:53:09,227
and also Christian Business Committee,
two wonderful men's organizations.
970
00:53:09,227 --> 00:53:14,232
And, we started going to, conferences and,
971
00:53:15,650 --> 00:53:16,818
learning how to grow.
972
00:53:16,818 --> 00:53:20,155
And all this time we were getting invites,
we were getting
973
00:53:20,864 --> 00:53:22,824
invitations to various churches.
974
00:53:22,824 --> 00:53:25,869
And so we formed, excuse me,
975
00:53:25,994 --> 00:53:29,331
we formed Duke Ministry for Christ and,
976
00:53:31,041 --> 00:53:34,294
as just a vehicle we could use.
977
00:53:35,378 --> 00:53:38,381
We weren't asking for money,
but when we'd go,
978
00:53:39,591 --> 00:53:41,384
we'd go to a church,
979
00:53:41,384 --> 00:53:44,387
say, in Chicago or wherever was,
980
00:53:44,512 --> 00:53:47,557
they say, well, how much do you
you you ask?
981
00:53:47,599 --> 00:53:49,184
Well, I said, we don't ask me anything.
982
00:53:49,184 --> 00:53:53,855
I said, just give us what you you'd like
and all that money that we'd get,
983
00:53:53,855 --> 00:53:59,152
we just put in to Duke ministry and
so we never take a salary and, nothing.
984
00:53:59,402 --> 00:54:03,406
Just we use it for expenses,
and as the money builds up
985
00:54:03,406 --> 00:54:06,034
we use it to support other ministries.
986
00:54:06,076 --> 00:54:08,328
Evangelist and,
987
00:54:08,328 --> 00:54:11,915
we have 3 or 4, wonderful groups
988
00:54:11,915 --> 00:54:14,918
we work with and internationally.
989
00:54:14,918 --> 00:54:17,921
And, and so
990
00:54:18,338 --> 00:54:20,674
we don't we have a,
991
00:54:20,674 --> 00:54:24,928
5013C called Duke ministry of Christ,
but we don't take salaries.
992
00:54:24,928 --> 00:54:26,096
We don't take anything.
993
00:54:26,096 --> 00:54:31,601
We just give the money
to whoever God tells us to give it to him.
994
00:54:31,601 --> 00:54:34,771
So and we do pay for expenses.
995
00:54:35,188 --> 00:54:39,442
I mean, they pay us and we pay up by plane
tickets and stuff like that.
996
00:54:40,944 --> 00:54:41,653
So it's been a
997
00:54:41,653 --> 00:54:44,656
wonderful walk, over the last,
998
00:54:45,407 --> 00:54:48,410
Reagan, over the last,
999
00:54:48,827 --> 00:54:51,830
well, since 1978 and,
Speaker:
00:54:52,747 --> 00:54:54,624
and seeing what I saw in scripture
Speaker:
00:54:54,624 --> 00:54:57,627
and as described in Scripture that the,
Speaker:
00:54:58,169 --> 00:55:02,257
the truth of the word is becoming more
and more clear to me.
Speaker:
00:55:02,465 --> 00:55:05,969
You know, God speaks the truth to us,
and he's given us a
Speaker:
00:55:07,721 --> 00:55:09,806
a manual for life.
Speaker:
00:55:09,806 --> 00:55:11,391
And it's called the Bible.
Speaker:
00:55:11,391 --> 00:55:13,685
The more we get our
Speaker:
00:55:13,685 --> 00:55:13,935
The more we get our
Speaker:
00:55:14,019 --> 00:55:17,188
lives in line
with what God says, and God wants us
Speaker:
00:55:17,188 --> 00:55:20,191
to, how God wants us to act and,
Speaker:
00:55:20,984 --> 00:55:22,235
respond to others.
Speaker:
00:55:22,235 --> 00:55:25,238
And loving your neighbor and loving him.
Speaker:
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:29,200
Then peace and like, Dotty
and I still get into arguments
Speaker:
00:55:30,076 --> 00:55:33,079
and but the we’ve learned, to follow
Speaker:
00:55:33,330 --> 00:55:37,625
the Scripture says,
do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Speaker:
00:55:38,877 --> 00:55:40,420
So we get
Speaker:
00:55:40,420 --> 00:55:43,757
we start getting ready for bed,
we settle it and,
Speaker:
00:55:44,674 --> 00:55:49,846
and we go to bed in peace with one
another.
Speaker:
00:55:49,971 --> 00:55:52,974
It's amazing how, if you will
Speaker:
00:55:54,768 --> 00:55:58,605
forget your hurts and just accept or
Speaker:
00:56:00,398 --> 00:56:01,608
or apologize for
Speaker:
00:56:01,608 --> 00:56:04,694
how you hurt your spouse or vice versa.
Speaker:
00:56:05,820 --> 00:56:07,238
Then, it's.
Speaker:
00:56:07,238 --> 00:56:10,241
You can't stay angry. And,
Speaker:
00:56:10,492 --> 00:56:12,160
and so, we have,
Speaker:
00:56:12,160 --> 00:56:16,081
And so it's been a a blessing to us
and to have,
Speaker:
00:56:17,457 --> 00:56:18,958
reflect our lives.
Speaker:
00:56:18,958 --> 00:56:21,961
Reflect, hope,
Speaker:
00:56:22,379 --> 00:56:25,382
for struggling couples or people
Speaker:
00:56:25,382 --> 00:56:28,468
who are searching for the truth and,
Speaker:
00:56:29,594 --> 00:56:32,222
the truth of Jesus. And,
Speaker:
00:56:32,222 --> 00:56:33,640
so we used to travel a lot with,
Speaker:
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:35,266
so we used to travel a lot with,
Speaker:
00:56:36,101 --> 00:56:39,229
with organizations like, a,
Speaker:
00:56:40,522 --> 00:56:43,525
Christian Businessmen's Committee,
CBMC or,
Speaker:
00:56:44,651 --> 00:56:46,236
for Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship.
Speaker:
00:56:46,236 --> 00:56:50,115
We don't do that so much anymore,
but we still get invitations
Speaker:
00:56:50,115 --> 00:56:56,329
all over the world
to share the reality of, of God.
Speaker:
00:56:57,789 --> 00:57:00,792
So that's our story, and we stickin to it.
Speaker:
00:57:01,584 --> 00:57:03,837
Wow. That's amazing though.
Speaker:
00:57:03,837 --> 00:57:06,714
Like what a
Speaker:
00:57:06,714 --> 00:57:08,466
It was a shift for you. Right.
Speaker:
00:57:08,466 --> 00:57:11,428
Like when you're at NASA
you have this, this drive
Speaker:
00:57:11,428 --> 00:57:14,556
to walk on the moon
and do these missions and things, which is
Speaker:
00:57:14,973 --> 00:57:17,976
I don't think we can say there's
anything wrong with that. But,
Speaker:
00:57:18,476 --> 00:57:21,271
one of the things that you pull out in
your book as well, and I
Speaker:
00:57:21,271 --> 00:57:22,647
and what you've been mentioning here
Speaker:
00:57:22,647 --> 00:57:25,650
is the cost that that can have
on the relationships around you.
Speaker:
00:57:26,609 --> 00:57:29,654
And then how you had to go back once
Christ got Ahold of your life,
Speaker:
00:57:30,029 --> 00:57:31,614
you know, and make some changes.
Speaker:
00:57:31,614 --> 00:57:34,617
And that's a that's pretty profound
because it's easy to look at all the
Speaker:
00:57:35,243 --> 00:57:40,123
the fancy things you walked on the moon,
but then also, what how is your family,
Speaker:
00:57:40,123 --> 00:57:43,209
you know, and how is your walk with Christ
and actually bring it back to that?
Speaker:
00:57:44,210 --> 00:57:44,878
So this is
Speaker:
00:57:44,878 --> 00:57:47,881
going back to something earlier
you had mentioned,
Speaker:
00:57:48,047 --> 00:57:48,423
but, you know,
Speaker:
00:57:48,423 --> 00:57:51,843
there are a lot of people out there
who think, oh, man never went to the moon.
Speaker:
00:57:51,843 --> 00:57:53,845
That's that's all a big lie.
Speaker:
00:57:53,845 --> 00:57:57,807
But I've heard a lot of Christians say
that too, some people that I know as well.
Speaker:
00:57:58,683 --> 00:58:01,811
How does that make you feel
when fellow believers in Christ
Speaker:
00:58:01,811 --> 00:58:04,022
would doubt your experience?
Speaker:
00:58:04,022 --> 00:58:06,608
Like, does that bother you
or is it not a big deal?
Speaker:
00:58:06,608 --> 00:58:10,653
Well, on YouTube and, Facebook, I
Speaker:
00:58:12,322 --> 00:58:14,032
get called, you liar.
Speaker:
00:58:14,032 --> 00:58:17,035
You didn't walk on the moon.
Speaker:
00:58:17,785 --> 00:58:19,787
They're willfully ignorant
Speaker:
00:58:19,787 --> 00:58:23,583
because the evidence is clear
that we walked on the moon.
Speaker:
00:58:23,583 --> 00:58:25,043
because the evidence is clear
that we walked on the moon.
Speaker:
00:58:25,084 --> 00:58:27,545
We had six landings.
Speaker:
00:58:27,545 --> 00:58:30,548
And you can see the spacecraft on the moon
Speaker:
00:58:31,132 --> 00:58:34,135
from the LRO photographs.
Speaker:
00:58:34,761 --> 00:58:36,262
And I said, why don't you believe it?
Speaker:
00:58:36,262 --> 00:58:39,349
They said, well, I just don't believe it,
they can't give me a
Speaker:
00:58:39,557 --> 00:58:43,228
they can't give me a sound reason
why they don't believe it.
Speaker:
00:58:43,269 --> 00:58:44,771
They just don't believe it.
Speaker:
00:58:44,771 --> 00:58:48,399
And they they are ignoring the evidence
and with the evidence.
Speaker:
00:58:48,399 --> 00:58:50,026
And they they are ignoring the evidence
and with the evidence.
Speaker:
00:58:50,193 --> 00:58:52,320
And you if you see the evidence
Speaker:
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:55,281
and you still don't believe it,
you're willfully ignorant.
Speaker:
00:58:55,281 --> 00:58:57,784
And, so I don't use that word.
Speaker:
00:58:57,784 --> 00:58:58,910
I mostly,
Speaker:
00:59:00,537 --> 00:59:03,540
you know, face to face, but,
Speaker:
00:59:03,873 --> 00:59:05,750
the evidence is there.
Speaker:
00:59:05,750 --> 00:59:09,170
I mean, why did we fake it six times?
Speaker:
00:59:10,129 --> 00:59:13,091
And how can 400,000 people,
Speaker:
00:59:13,424 --> 00:59:18,137
400,000 people keep a secret for 50 years?
Speaker:
00:59:19,556 --> 00:59:22,183
Well,
and for you to have such an incredible
Speaker:
00:59:22,183 --> 00:59:25,103
testimony of what
Christ has done in your life,
Speaker:
00:59:25,103 --> 00:59:27,939
for someone to say it's all a hoax,
Speaker:
00:59:27,939 --> 00:59:30,733
they would have to believe, you know,
like let's say they're a fellow Christian.
Speaker:
00:59:30,733 --> 00:59:32,443
They would have to say that
Speaker:
00:59:32,443 --> 00:59:36,155
like they would have to call you a liar
as as a fellow believer in Christ.
Speaker:
00:59:36,155 --> 00:59:39,158
And that seems to me a very,
Speaker:
00:59:39,909 --> 00:59:42,996
That, that that doesn't
that really bothers me, actually.
Speaker:
00:59:43,621 --> 00:59:47,625
well, I was just recently
looking at, comments on,
Speaker:
00:59:48,668 --> 00:59:51,045
Facebook and and those.
Speaker:
00:59:51,045 --> 00:59:53,214
Well,
when when are you going to stop lying?
Speaker:
00:59:54,215 --> 00:59:55,675
You know,
Speaker:
00:59:55,675 --> 00:59:58,219
you're a Christian and you’re lying,
you never walked.
Speaker:
00:59:58,219 --> 01:00:00,597
Nobody ever walked on the moon.
Speaker:
01:00:00,597 --> 01:00:02,640
And I don’t respond to that too much.
Speaker:
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,560
But, the,
Speaker:
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,479
if I wrote him back, I said,
why don't you believe it?
Speaker:
01:00:08,479 --> 01:00:10,398
Look at the evidence.
Speaker:
01:00:10,398 --> 01:00:12,984
And, the evidence is clear.
Speaker:
01:00:13,818 --> 01:00:14,986
You know, I was on Glenn Beck's
Speaker:
01:00:14,986 --> 01:00:17,989
show, about a year ago, and,
Speaker:
01:00:18,656 --> 01:00:21,367
and, he says,
Speaker:
01:00:21,367 --> 01:00:22,493
who took the picture?
Speaker:
01:00:22,493 --> 01:00:23,828
He asked a question. Who?
Speaker:
01:00:23,828 --> 01:00:26,831
Who took Armstrong's picture
Speaker:
01:00:27,707 --> 01:00:30,710
when he stepped onto the moon.
Speaker:
01:00:32,170 --> 01:00:35,173
There was nobody
who was holding the camera.
Speaker:
01:00:36,591 --> 01:00:38,343
So I explained it to him.
Speaker:
01:00:38,343 --> 01:00:42,305
He said, when he came down the ladder
or to the left,
Speaker:
01:00:42,430 --> 01:00:45,433
there's a, segment of the
Speaker:
01:00:46,225 --> 01:00:50,063
vehicle called a modular equipment
storage assembly.
Speaker:
01:00:50,855 --> 01:00:54,067
And and he pulled the handle
Speaker:
01:00:54,067 --> 01:00:57,612
to release that and that popped open,
well in there was a camera.
Speaker:
01:00:59,113 --> 01:00:59,656
And when the
Speaker:
01:00:59,656 --> 01:01:03,451
thing popped open, mission
control turned it on.
Speaker:
01:01:03,951 --> 01:01:08,247
So there was a camera
pointing at the footpad,
Speaker:
01:01:09,290 --> 01:01:10,124
and it was there.
Speaker:
01:01:10,124 --> 01:01:13,294
And so that was the the signal
that was the first
Speaker:
01:01:14,379 --> 01:01:17,256
live,
Speaker:
01:01:17,256 --> 01:01:19,425
picture you had from the moon,
Speaker:
01:01:19,425 --> 01:01:22,387
from this remote camera.
Speaker:
01:01:22,387 --> 01:01:22,428
from this remote camera.
Speaker:
01:01:22,553 --> 01:01:26,140
And then once they got off,
both got outside, they took the camera
Speaker:
01:01:26,140 --> 01:01:29,435
out of the of the storage
Speaker:
01:01:30,103 --> 01:01:33,189
and set it up on a tripod. And,
Speaker:
01:01:34,273 --> 01:01:37,276
it had enough power in it,
and they just sent signals.
Speaker:
01:01:37,276 --> 01:01:39,195
They adjusted the antenna.
Speaker:
01:01:39,195 --> 01:01:42,198
They sent signals back,
Speaker:
01:01:42,448 --> 01:01:45,702
through the lunar module,
or however, to Earth.
Speaker:
01:01:45,702 --> 01:01:50,164
And so they have a camera that they
it was fixed on a tripod.
Speaker:
01:01:50,164 --> 01:01:55,128
We had a camera on our rover
that they could control.
Speaker:
01:01:55,211 --> 01:01:56,796
They could zoom it in and out.
Speaker:
01:01:56,796 --> 01:02:00,216
They could up and down and, elevate it.
Speaker:
01:02:00,216 --> 01:02:03,177
They could go, panorama.
Speaker:
01:02:03,177 --> 01:02:06,389
And, all we did was adjust
Speaker:
01:02:06,389 --> 01:02:09,392
the antenna on the rover to the Earth
Speaker:
01:02:09,434 --> 01:02:13,604
and turned it on, the camera on,
and they took control of it. And,
Speaker:
01:02:14,856 --> 01:02:15,857
it was amazing.
Speaker:
01:02:15,857 --> 01:02:17,483
Yeah. And,
Speaker:
01:02:17,650 --> 01:02:19,193
See I think yeah.
Speaker:
01:02:19,193 --> 01:02:22,572
Because it does bother me when,
when some of these people are,
Speaker:
01:02:23,156 --> 01:02:25,992
you know, they're Christians or,
you know, and and yet they would
Speaker:
01:02:25,992 --> 01:02:29,120
still say, oh, you didn't do it,
but yet you're a Christian as well.
Speaker:
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:33,249
And that seems a pretty
serious accusation, you know, against.
Speaker:
01:02:33,249 --> 01:02:36,252
And that's why
I wanted to ask that question.
Speaker:
01:02:36,252 --> 01:02:39,380
Just for those people that are listening
who might think that, you know, and,
Speaker:
01:02:39,922 --> 01:02:42,800
and then to hear your testimony of Christ,
Speaker:
01:02:42,925 --> 01:02:46,137
Yeah, I would hope that that they would
they wouldn't get so derailed
Speaker:
01:02:46,137 --> 01:02:48,139
calling you a liar
that they missed your testimony
Speaker:
01:02:48,139 --> 01:02:51,142
because they, you know,
you have a real powerful testimony here.
Speaker:
01:02:51,392 --> 01:02:54,395
Well, they don't,
Speaker:
01:02:54,437 --> 01:02:56,355
they have ignored the evidence.
Speaker:
01:02:57,774 --> 01:03:00,777
I mean, the 600 pounds, the moon rocks,
Speaker:
01:03:02,361 --> 01:03:05,364
and they're totally made totally different
Speaker:
01:03:06,449 --> 01:03:10,077
from and and the pictures that we took,
Speaker:
01:03:11,162 --> 01:03:13,122
clear picture
Speaker:
01:03:13,122 --> 01:03:16,209
all the way to the horizon,
looking up at the sky.
Speaker:
01:03:16,209 --> 01:03:18,628
And one of the theories say, well,
the sky is black
Speaker:
01:03:18,628 --> 01:03:19,962
And one of the theories say, well,
the sky is black
Speaker:
01:03:19,962 --> 01:03:22,799
and there's no stars up there.
So it was done in a...
Speaker:
01:03:22,799 --> 01:03:25,676
Well dummy, the sun is shining.
Speaker:
01:03:25,676 --> 01:03:25,802
Well dummy, the sun is shining.
Speaker:
01:03:27,094 --> 01:03:28,596
That's hilarious actually.
Speaker:
01:03:28,596 --> 01:03:31,390
Like right now
it's daylight while we're recording this.
Speaker:
01:03:31,390 --> 01:03:32,892
And I can't see stars in the sky either.
Speaker:
01:03:32,892 --> 01:03:37,146
Wow. And sun shining and the, the stars.
Speaker:
01:03:37,146 --> 01:03:38,731
The sky is black on the moon.
Speaker:
01:03:38,731 --> 01:03:39,774
When the sun is shining.
Speaker:
01:03:39,774 --> 01:03:42,443
Because there's no atmosphere up there.
Speaker:
01:03:42,443 --> 01:03:44,153
So the sky is black.
Speaker:
01:03:44,153 --> 01:03:45,655
It's not a blue sky.
Speaker:
01:03:45,655 --> 01:03:49,200
It's not a orange sky
like on Mars, you know.
Speaker:
01:03:49,826 --> 01:03:50,159
So, And I.
Speaker:
01:03:50,159 --> 01:03:50,827
So, And I.
Speaker:
01:03:51,786 --> 01:03:52,203
Yeah.
Speaker:
01:03:52,203 --> 01:03:55,498
And I think, I think that's
what's so powerful for me, though,
Speaker:
01:03:55,498 --> 01:03:58,835
with this story is, you know,
you were part of
Speaker:
01:03:59,544 --> 01:04:00,419
arguably the,
Speaker:
01:04:00,419 --> 01:04:04,340
the greatest scientific achievement
in human history, like, the Apollo program
Speaker:
01:04:04,340 --> 01:04:07,552
is just one of the great things
the human race has done.
Speaker:
01:04:08,344 --> 01:04:11,222
And I think there's
there's a beauty in that and really
Speaker:
01:04:11,222 --> 01:04:14,308
a glory
in that of showing the creation of God.
Speaker:
01:04:14,976 --> 01:04:18,020
And you are a part of that process,
which I think is pretty, pretty neat.
Speaker:
01:04:18,062 --> 01:04:21,232
And I would hate to take away from that by
some people like, oh, it's just made up.
Speaker:
01:04:21,232 --> 01:04:24,235
It's not real, you know? So.
Speaker:
01:04:25,069 --> 01:04:27,488
Well I do want to end with, with this.
Speaker:
01:04:27,488 --> 01:04:30,241
There's a quote from your, from your book.
Speaker:
01:04:30,241 --> 01:04:32,410
You say I'm just going to quick read this.
Speaker:
01:04:33,369 --> 01:04:34,287
I used to say I
Speaker:
01:04:34,287 --> 01:04:37,373
could live 10,000 years
and never have an experience
Speaker:
01:04:37,373 --> 01:04:40,793
as thrilling as walking on the moon,
but the excitement and satisfaction
Speaker:
01:04:40,793 --> 01:04:43,796
of that walk doesn't
compare to my walk with Jesus.
Speaker:
01:04:43,838 --> 01:04:45,882
A walk that lasts forever.
Speaker:
01:04:45,882 --> 01:04:45,965
A walk that lasts forever.
Speaker:
01:04:45,965 --> 01:04:48,384
I thought Apollo 16
would be my crowning glory,
Speaker:
01:04:48,384 --> 01:04:51,470
but the glory that Jesus gives
will not tarnish or fade away.
Speaker:
01:04:51,679 --> 01:04:54,682
His crown will last
throughout all eternity.
Speaker:
01:04:55,057 --> 01:04:56,100
And there's some listening
Speaker:
01:04:56,100 --> 01:04:58,185
that might have questions
about Christianity,
Speaker:
01:04:58,185 --> 01:05:02,106
or they're questioning their own faith
in Christ and just want to ask,
Speaker:
01:05:02,106 --> 01:05:05,109
is there anything you would like to leave
with those listeners?
Speaker:
01:05:05,234 --> 01:05:08,070
Well, the Bible speaks the truth.
Speaker:
01:05:08,070 --> 01:05:10,323
And, we have a free.
Speaker:
01:05:10,323 --> 01:05:12,283
God has given us a free will.
Speaker:
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And we can believe or not believe.
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If you if you're doubting your faith
or you just say,
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ask God to show you that he is real
and he loves you.
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And if you read the scriptures,
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the New Testament, especially about Jesus,
is love.
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And, and and the fruit of the spirit,
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the love that God has demonstrated to us
in giving Jesus is,
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is a tremendous. And,
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I just accept it.
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And, and it's given me a great peace
and a purpose and,
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and, you know, the walk on
the moon was three days,
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but like you're saying, that, quote,
the walk with Jesus is forever.
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And, and so I pray that everybody
is watching this
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and listening to it, is.
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Give it a go.
Just say, Lord, are you real?
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And God will reveal himself to you.
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His love, His reality and his power.
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So, it,
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it's a peace for me to,
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to know
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that I have the absolute assurance
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where, if I continue to follow
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Jesus, Ima end up with him in heaven. So,
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that's the promise of scripture.
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You will be with me forever.
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So we have a choice. It.
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We can walk together, or we can.
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You can walk apart from God.
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So I know it's no more.
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You walk two together.
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Ask God to show you the reality.
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His reality. He'll do that.
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And so if people are watching this
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and doubting their faith
or doubting their purpose, just ask God.
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Reveal yourself to me.
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The truth.
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Well Charlie
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Duke it has been an absolute honor
to have you on our podcast
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and hear your story of what
Christ has done in your life.
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I really appreciate your time
and and your willingness to,
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to come share your story with us today.
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Bless you and, bless your,
work and, and, your podcast and,
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pray that
God uses it to His glory and honor.
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And so thank you for,
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having me on.
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I really appreciate you.