As I mentioned in my previous post, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Premier Showing of the documentary “In the Shadow of the Moon” and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I had no idea what to expect, although the brochure mentioned joining the filmmakers and the astronauts. It was unclear to me if they were referring to astronauts from the Shuttle missions, or if there would be astronauts from Apollo.
I went with Deniz Gencaga, and he spotted Buzz Aldrin almost immediately on arrival. Accompanying Dr. Aldrin were Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). We were fortunate to get to meet and speak to each of these gentlemen… 5 out of 12 of the only humans to ever set foot on an alien world.
There was always a crowd surrounding Buzz Aldrin (picture above), and we didn’t spend a lot of time with him. We did end up walking behind him down the hall of the Planetarium on the way to the theater. I was impressed to see that Buzz was slowing down to take time to look at the fantastic photos of Mars, and Jupiter along the way. I love to see people truly interested in discovering new things, and it was great to see that even a man who walked on the Moon is moved by photos of the surface of Mars. I thought that he probably appreciates these images in a way that I never can.
We spend quite a bit of time talking to Alan Bean, who was extremely friendly. I thanked each of these gentlemen for the inspiration they gave me when I was young, and Alan asked what I did. I told him about my time as a Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, and that I am today a physics professor at the University at Albany—still doing NASA-funded research. I found out that he is an artist, and has a website with paintings of various moments and events, real and imagined, on the Moon. These paintings are excellent and I urge you to take a look.
Harrison Schmitt and his wife Teresa were extremely kind to us. We spent some time talking with Harrison, and I told him about our research to look for organic molecules in space. Teresa then asked if we had a camera and if we would like a picture taken with Harrison. I had brought my camera, but didn’t want to impose on these people who I was honored to meet. I excitedly agreed. Below is the photo Teresa Schmitt took of Deniz and me.
Thank you!!!
I tried to find Harrison Schmitt later, since I wanted to ask what the Valley of Taurus Littrow looked like. This is an extremely deep valley, but I can never quite make it out its depth and scale on the Apollo images. Unfortunately, I did not find him.
We spent some time listening to Charlie Duke give an interview. He told a story about the only moment that he was actually afraid during the mission. Apollo 16 flew in 1972 during the summer olympics. Charlie decided that he would try for the high jump record, and he jumped high off the lunar surface. However, he fell backwards, and at that moment he feared (rightfully so) that this jump would end up killing him. Fortunately it didn’t!
Last, we met Edgar Mitchell. However, he had realized that he had lost his wife. We couldn’t help him with that, so we said goodbye and wished him luck.
It was a fantastic experience, and I was extremely pleased to see that after all these years of attention, these gentlemen were as friendly and as open as ever. I would again like to thank them all for their efforts, sacrifice, bravery and most of all the inspiration that they gave a generation of boys and girls.
It is too bad that the children of today do not have heroes of this magnitude to look up to. It has been so long since we have had true heroes, that it seems we have forgotten what being a hero means and have replaced the concept of Hero with that of Celebrity. Sad.
I did have one funny moment where I was looking for someone to take a photo of Deniz and me in front of a mural depicting the lunar landscape. I saw a man walking along with his son, and I started to ask him to take a photo of us. All I said was “Excus…” when I realized that I recognized him. I paused to consider, and then I realized that it was Stephen Colbert! I never did ask him, although now I wish I’d had.
Kevin Knuth
Albany NY
Posted under Astronomy, Exploration, Space
This post was written by drknuth on September 6, 2007
Tags: Aldrin, astronauts, Buzz, DVD, Exploration, gala, landings, lunar, moon, movie, NASA, show, Space
