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ON THE face of it, the many books hitting the shelves for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing are merely a response to our desire to learn more about the people involved and the place they visited as the birthday jollies get under way. But dig a little and you might feel, as I did, that they are responding to something deeper.
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With earthly problems that range from swine flu to crunched credit, there is increasingly a “why bother?” attitude to space exploration – one that has gathered momentum for a decade or more. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin autobiography, , leads the field of new releases, and provides the antidote to those insisting we remain earthbound.
Never one to talk down his own achievements or those of the Apollo programme, he has been known to engage in fisticuffs when his accomplishments have been questioned. That makes for good reading. But where Aldrin really scores with this, his second autobiography, is in the sections covering his descent into depression and alcoholism, and his eternal status as the “second man on the moon”. The candid portrayal of his earthly battles – often written with great humour – make this a cut above the rest.
Reading between the lines, Aldrin’s depression set in almost immediately after the return-from-the-moon empties were flung into the trash. Let’s face it, what the hell do you do after walking on the moon? TV ads for lawnmowers, it seems. And so you begin to understand how “magnificent desolation” not only summed up his opinion of the moon but also his developing state of mind.
“Let’s face it, what the hell do you do after walking on the moon? TV ads for lawnmowers, it seems”
Then came his affair, his arrest, his divorce and ultimately his alcoholism – an almost natural reaction to an upbringing by an authoritarian father, followed by rigid military service. Even here, though, Aldrin relieves the tension with gallows humour. When his psychiatrist questioned whether he was suicidal he played on his famous indecisiveness by replying no, “I couldn’t make up my mind how to do it”.
Of his “second man” epithet, so many apocryphal stories abound regarding Aldrin’s desire – and that of his overbearing father – to be first on the moon and of his attempts to change the minds of NASA officials, that it’s been difficult to ascertain what might or might not be true. Aldrin refutes them all, if with a slight change of emphasis from his , saying that being the “second man” only started to trouble him upon his return. Under standard NASA protocol, Aldrin – the junior crew member – would have been first to leave the lunar module, but Neil Armstrong was chosen to do it.
Whatever the truth, and we must be prepared to believe Aldrin’s account, it would be impossible, after losing priority, for that not to become a keystone of one’s psyche – a psyche described by Aldrin’s psychiatrist as inherently “selfish”. Aldrin is not entirely forthcoming over whether this was a key factor in his subsequent depression and alcoholism, but it’s difficult to believe otherwise, especially in so ambitious a man.
Yet Aldrin delights in telling us he was the first man to pee on the moon. And, more esoterically, he was also the first man to take Christian communion there (Armstrong did not). Intriguingly, it is something he now regrets for its exclusivity – he was there, as the cliché goes, for all mankind, not just American Christians.
To outsiders, Aldrin often seemed difficult to warm to (his fellow astronauts are often quoted as saying much the same); a somewhat self-aggrandising self-publicist with a personality he seemed determined to stamp on the Apollo programme. Yet having read this book, I have more sympathy for his character and circumstances. His sense of humour was often concealed behind the persona he, or more pertinently, NASA, wished to project. And despite his Christian convictions, he wouldn’t stand for proselytising fools. Read the story about him decking the Bible-wielding TV interviewer who was convinced Aldrin had never walked on the moon. As Jay Leno said: “Way to go Buzz!” Even his fellow astronauts were won over by the punch he threw.
And, to a point, I was won over by his words. When reading autobiographies, I’ve often been disappointed to find that my heroes are either mundane or dislikable. Pleasingly, Aldrin’s has the converse effect.
Great holiday reading then, in contrast to Rick Stroud’s , a miscellany with attitude that’s great for dipping in and out of. Among the many chapters, you’ll find “Facts and Figures” for stats fans, “Gods and Myths” for the less rational, and “Astronauts, Cosmonauts and Lunar Exploration” for those who prefer their Aldrins to their Alignaks (Inuit moon god). Did you know the moon has an atmosphere? Not much of one, but it’s not the complete vacuum of legend. Or that its crust is much thicker on the far side than on the near side? If you learn everything in here you might even be able to hold your own in an argument with Aldrin, although it might be worth genning up with Craig Nelson’s , too.
Nelson delves into the lives of all three Apollo 11 astronauts. It is at once sympathetic to them, yet scathing when digging out their character defects. Armstrong, while widely admired by colleagues, is described variously as “fervently nonsocialising” through to “acidly pungent”. You quickly conclude that command module pilot was the affable one. He tried to foster camaraderie but came up against the enigma that was Armstrong and the multiple issues we know made up Aldrin’s personality.
“While admired by colleagues, Armstrong is described as ‘fervently nonsocialising’”
Yet Nelson goes way beyond Apollo 11. He looks at the Soviet programme, from its early lead via Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin through to its pursuit of NASA during the 1960s. He takes the whole story back to basics, from its unplanned nativity in Germany during the second world war as the V2 rocket was being prepared to destroy the UK, right through the cold war to the potential future in which Apollo 11 had failed and President Nixon was intoning the astronauts’ epitaph in a eulogy penned in advance by speechwriter William Safire.
What does Rocket Men tell us about Aldrin’s “second man” dilemma? recalls Aldrin lobbying hard among fellow astronauts to be first, apparently irritating many. Significantly, Collins said that after the final decision, Aldrin’s attitude took a turn towards “gloom and introspection”. With Nelson’s impeccable research, his ability to tie the myriad strings of the space race into a coherent whole and the power of the story itself, this and Magnificent Desolation should be at the top of your book list.
But of course, an anniversary such as this – especially one so photogenic – cannot pass without its share of coffee-table books. edited by Robert Jacobs showcases each surviving astronaut’s favourite photographs from the missions. With such a wealth to choose from they are, of course, superb.
My personal choices would be commander secretary Martha Caballero wishing him luck before the Apollo 13 mission, a tiny, distant Apollo 15 lunar module alone on the moon’s surface, and a filthy, unshaven Cernan after his second moonwalk. And Aldrin’s photo of the Apollo 11 landing site (pictured) is the only good picture that exists of Armstrong on the surface of the moon. Some people have read great significance into that, given Aldrin’s back story – the simple truth is that Armstrong hogged the camera.
Piers Bizony’s , which also features this picture, makes use of the seemingly endless visual imagery of the Apollo era, but scores by adding the author’s thoughtful essay on Apollo. It is a coffee-table book with intellect and Bizony’s knowledge of Apollo shines as much as the book’s glossy pages. Bizony is also a joint author of , the biography of Gagarin, possibly the finest spaceman life story ever written.
Andrew Chaikin’s picks up where Andrew Smith left off, giving us the perspective of the men who flew the Apollo missions. While visually more pleasing, however, it adds little more than photos – admittedly fine ones – to Smith’s earlier work. But if you haven’t got a copy of Moondust and want something to adorn your home, that’s a good enough excuse to buy Chaikin’s book. I’d discreetly remove the pictures of Armstrong’s “one small step”, though, if Buzz were popping round for coffee.
Magnificent Desolation
Bloomsbury/Crown
The Book of the Moon
Walker/Doubleday
Rocket Men
John Murray/Viking
Apollo: Through the eyes of the astronauts
Abrams
One Giant Leap
Aurum
Voices from the Moon
Viking
