'That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' - Neil Armstrong -
The door of the Nautilus Lounge of the Ocean Endeavour opens slightly as a steward slips in, closing the door behind him. The air outside is frigid as the evening's inky blackness is devoid of ambient light. The ship moves in an upward then downward motion in sync with the waves in the Northern reaches of the Canadian Northwest Passage. Every now and then there is a bang or a crash followed by a reverberating shudder as the ship collides with errant sea-ice. The steward hurries over to close the heavy window coverings, reducing possible reflections and providing a warm, cosy atmosphere before pulling down a portable screen from its fixing on the ceiling. The projector, which is also bolted to the ceiling, is switched on and a laptop computer is placed on a sturdy tripod and checked before the door is opened to allow passengers inside.
One by one we enter the room; the steward jokes with us as he ushers us to the available seats and offers drinks from the extensive bar. All ninety-six passengers and most of Adventure Canada's resource staff are here tonight and we squeeze into any spare corner we can find. Some latecomers have to sit on the floor. The chattering lulls to a buzz then dies down to near silence as the guest of honour walks to the darkened screen and introduces himself.
It is September 11, 2015 and Charlie Duke is dressed in royal-blue coveralls; standard issue that had been provided to him by NASA in 1972 when he flew to the moon on the Apollo 16 mission. Clearly, he has not gained any weight over the past forty-three years as the suit fits him as perfectly today as it did way back then for the official pre-launch photographs. At 79 years of age, he stands erect and tall; apparently not suffering from the physical ailments that elderly people often display. His fairly unlined face shows none of the signs of the stresses of his decorated career as a US test pilot and astronaut.
When I was ten years old, I watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take their first steps on the moon. There was no colour or large, slimline screens back then, and very few schools even had access to television sets. The moon-landing in July 1969 was such a momentous occasion that our principal, Sister Anthony Joseph, had somehow conned the owner of the local electrical store to lend us a television set so that the whole school could watch the lunar landing as it happened. The store owner, Mr Tritton, didn’t know what he was in for because the screen was filled with fuzzy 'snow' unless he stood next to the 'rabbit-ear' antenna on top of the set. He eventually fixed the picture and sound as Neil Armstrong took those first tentative steps out of the lunar module and onto the moon's surface at 12:56pm on July 21, 1969 (Australian time), uttering the now-famous quote,
'That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’
The official date and time of the landing is July 20, 1969 at 20:17, but due to the time-zone differences in Australia, our experience happened the following day!
Those images had been beamed across the world from our own Radio Telescope in Parkes, NSW and from that moment on, I have been fascinated by space travel. Today, I am enthralled to have the opportunity to listen to the experiences of space explorer, Charlie Duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon and the man whose voice was heard on that day in 1969. I didn’t know it then, but Charlie was Capcom, the spacecraft communicator, for the landing of Apollo 11.
Softly-spoken, yet compelling as he recounts his experiences on the moon, his slight Texan drawl puts new pronunciation on some words, like mo-on. I was immediately drawn into the world of space travel and his exploration of a grey, lifeless, airless, hostile environment; a world I will never experience myself. Facts and figures roll off Charlie’s tongue as he quotes distances, time travelled, weights, measures, and even his pitiful 'living away from home allowance'. These are the words of the lecturer, the member of the exclusive Explorer’s Club, the bloke who is employed to talk to a group of eager listeners; the astronaut. Yet there is a human, more personal side to Charlie, which he demonstrates during his compelling talk.
‘I was selected for the Apollo 13 mission,’ he says.
This was the mission, made famous by the movie of the same name, starring Tom Hanks. When Charlie’s son was exposed to the Rubella virus prior to entering quarantine for the moon mission, he and Ken Mattingly were removed from it immediately, as neither of them had immunity to that childhood disease. This was a total disaster for Charlie and as a small tear leaks from his left eye and runs unchecked down his cheek, he is reliving the moments of despair and disappointment he had felt.
‘I didn’t think I would ever realise my dream of walking on the mo-on,’ he said ‘Because when disaster struck the mission, the whole Apollo space programme was placed on hold for a while.’
He recounts the joy he felt when he was selected for the Apollo 16 mission. The years between the Apollo 13 and 16 missions had not been spent in vain, as Charlie had to become an expert in geology as his job was to collect volcanic rock and soil samples from the Descartes Highlands.
Nearing the end of his lecture and during question time, Charlie is asked about the conspiracy theories surrounding the moon landings. A flash of anger or perhaps frustration crosses his face briefly as he sharply retorts with a question of his own.
‘Why should we lie about landing on the moon?’ he says. ‘And why would we lie about it six times?’ It is clear that the thought of twelve honourable men lying about their work and their achievements in space is not one that Charlie finds agreeable.
A day later, Charlie and his wife, Dorothy, share the same zodiac in which I am riding to visit the bleak Beechey Island, a windswept speck in the middle of nowhere. This is the last resting place of three men from the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition of the Northwest Passage. Because they died prior to the disappearance of the Erebus and the Terror, these three are the only crew members that had been buried. I trudge over the rock-hard surface where centuries of erosion by wind, water, and ice has ground the shoreline of the rocky islet down to smooth pebbles, which nature has cleverly cemented together with coarse sand. The desolation is almost overwhelming. I pause to chat with Charlie, who is also viewing the gravesite.
‘We-ell,’ he says with his drawn-out Texan drawl, ‘This place would have to be as close to the moon as you could get here on earth.’ He continues, pointing to the graves at our feet, ‘This is a hostile environment, and at first sight, almost totally devoid of life. When these men arrived here, they had a very short window of time to get the hell out. Their survival depended upon it. They miscalculated, got iced in, and paid with their lives.’
Despite the optimism of his lecture last night, I get the feeling that Charlie’s comments may come from experience. When the Apollo 16 lunar module landed on the moon, the astronauts had already experienced a communication problem, which had resulted in a delay that affected the length of time they could spend on the moon. They had also landed some 200 metres from their planned touch-down location, resulting in having used extra fuel. In all, they had been on the moon for a total of 72 hours, with just over 20 hours of time collecting samples from the designated lunar surface. They had known when they landed on the surface of the moon that there was no room for error if they were to rendezvous with the orbiting command/service module. They would only get one opportunity to make the connection. Despite the extra 96 kilograms in rock and soil samples they collected, they did have enough fuel to jettison themselves off the surface and to successfully rendezvous with the orbiting module.
Now in 2015, it seems almost impossible to believe that, despite the leaps and bounds in which space travel has progressed, nobody has attempted a return trip to the moon. Perhaps the world's scientists have enough information about the moon as they look towards the ways in which they can explore the surface of Mars and perhaps beyond.
During the course of the voyage out of the Northwest Passage, I have many opportunities to chat to both Charlie and his wife, Dorothy, but the discussion we have about his lunar-walk experience whilst standing on the surface of the desolate Beechey Island, is something that I'll never forget.
Explorers are special types of people. They have an ultimate goal, which must be achieved at all cost. Unlike Franklin's ill-fated voyage to find a route through The Northwest Passage, the astronauts of Apollo 16; Charlie Duke, Ken Mattingly, and John Young not only were able to explore an area of the moon no other person had visited, but successfully completed their mission and returned to earth safely. Like Franklin and other explorers before them, their dedication to accept impossible challenges to explore places beyond the realm of the imaginations of ordinary people, they have been instrumental in changing our perception of our place on earth and in our solar system.
Note: Imagine being on a ship somewhere in the northern reaches of Canada's Arctic region, and on that ship are several resource people who are the very best in their chosen field; artists, writers, photographers, scientists, and explorers. On September 11, 2015, I have the pleasure of having a chat to Apollo astronaut, Charlie Duke, one of the world's living treasures, on the remote and desolate Beechey Island in Canada.
Tour: Out of the Northwest Passage with Adventure Canada from September 4-21, 2015
September 11, 2015 visit to Beechey Island.