Posted: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:00 PM - 8,288 Readers
By: Burton Fitzsimmons
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin rode aboard a Saturn V rocket, landed on the moon on July 20, 1969 and safely returned to Earth days later.
The national collaboration, perspiration and inspiration that made up Apollo 11 molded an entire new generation of scientists and dreamers like Austinite Richard Garriott.
Garriott, a computer gaming pioneer, launched into space aboard a Russian rocket in October 2008 as one of the first cosmonauts to fly via private funding. He follows in the footsteps of his father, astronaut Owen Garriott, who flew aboard NASA's Skylab in the 1970s and again in the Space Shuttle Spacelab.
That makes Richard America's first second-generation astronaut.
Q: Give us an idea of what was going through Aldrin and Armstrong's minds by telling us about your own flight.
A: This whole experience was this sequence of pinnacle life experiences. The training itself was just phenomenal. What an honor and joy it was to train with all of those professional astronauts and cosmonauts for the journey. But of course nothing beats the day you put on your custom-made spacesuit, you walk into a fully-fueled rocket that is covered in frost because of the cryogenic fuels on board. And while everyone else is getting as far away as they can, you and your crewmates crawl up inside, literally shoehorn (yourselves) in the rocket, strap in, light it up and launch into space.
Q: We're in your den, and hanging here is a real spacesuit you tell us was used in an earlier Russian mission.
A: When I acquired this spacesuit, it was the first time I really got the chance to study one in detail and see how you get out of it and how it protects you from the vacuum of space. When I first started taking this apart, I was really surprised to see what I found. To get in and out of it, you are going to unzip this outside cloth layer which is going to hold the shape and pressure in. Inside that is this rubber balloon that is on the inside of that cloth. You basically open this up and put this on like a pair of pants. You squeeze your shoulders in put your head up. It's pretty hard to get in and out of by the way.
Q: I can imagine!
A: But most importantly, I thought, was how you were protected from the vacuum of space. What you do literally is you take the mouth of this big rubber balloon and gather it up and use these rubber bands and wind the rubber bands around it. Those rubber bands are literally protecting you from the vacuum of space.
Q: We've come to literally know it as 'The Day The Earth Stood Still.' The day that everybody sat around their TVs watching as these first steps on the moon. You were only 8 years old, what was your experience?
A: Oh I remember very vividly sitting in the family living room watching our large console television. The kind you had to wait five minutes for it to warm it up. I remember seeing these blurry black and white, flickery photos of the first steps on the moon. I was young enough at the time. One thing I find really fascinating after watching it a second time is, for example,
watching Neil Armstrong put his toe out on the surface once he gets down that ladder. He wasn't sure if the surface was hard or soft, or if he would sink. He evaluated the surface to see how deep he would sink in before he got off. That trepidation and that unknown, even after you landed on the surface of the moon is something that people really underestimated. To see how every aspect of that 10-year mission is filled with moment after moment of new horizons, profound danger, and
profound discovery.
Q: You grew up in Houston among other children of astronauts.
A: We didn't think twice about it ・everyone's dad went to space. It was normal.
Q: Long ago, an eye doctor told you your eyesight was too poor and that you'd never become an astronaut. Some tough news?
A: For me, I am not a person who takes no very well. And I am sure that it is that doctor who told me I couldn't go that set me on the path of going.
Q: An entire generation was introduced to science. We just don't see things like that happening today.
A: I think it is interesting to reflect on the period of history that NASA was in during the Cold War that cannot be repeated in the sense that NASA had a single mission so big and so bold that it became the national obsession and the national inspiration to get young students into science and math like it did for myself and a whole generation of us. A lot of people such as myself who earned wealth from the high-tech industry that they were inspired to go into because of Apollo are now coming back and joining the Space Race, the new Space Race.
Q: Thanks so much for your thoughts and time today, Richard.
Perched in Austin's "Silicon Hills" above Lake Austin, Garriott's home Brittania Manor houses a vast collection of medieval period pieces, vampire kits, magic tricks, spacesuits, and an actual Russian Sputnik, among other pieces of memorabilia. Click on the fourth video box to watch our exclusive tour with Richard Garriott.
