edgar-mitchell

56
The Way of the Explorer
And there was.
Out of our discussions, an idea came to mind, something we could do
on our own that might shed light on our curiosity in these neglected fields
of study. It occurred to us that there was an unusual opportunity presenting
itself here involving telepathy. In the past, parapsychologists had found
that the distance between two participants in any psychic experiment had
no effect on the results. Moreover, the time between the transmission and
reception of telepathic communications appeared to be instantaneous. What
Dr. Maxey, Dr. Boyle, and I wanted to know was if results could be obtained
over distances further than could be measured on Earth. Here was
a rare opportunity to find out from a distance of more than 200,000 miles,
20 times as far as any two human beings had ever been from each other,
the previous Apollo missions notwithstanding.
But being a personal, ad hoc experiment, we would have to keep the
plans very confidential. It was innocent enough, but the press corps that
blanketed the Cape searching for tidbits would blow our efforts out of all
proportion were they to know, and certainly the NASA administrators
would frown on any deviation from approved procedures on a moonshot.
But we primarily wanted to keep the project to ourselves in order to satisfy
the personal curiosity we had in common. If anything interesting resulted,
it could be published appropriately at some future time.
When I returned to Cape Canaveral after each discussion among the
three Eds, as we referred to ourselves, I prepared for the mission that now
loomed in the immediate future, my mind fortified for an onslaught of
new detail. The attention at NASA was now focused on Al, Stu, and myself,
and our preparation for one of the most audacious voyages ever undertaken.
After landing on the moon, Al and I were to travel on foot more
than a mile from the lunar module and climb to the summit of a meteor
impact crater, collecting and documenting lunar samples along the way.
In spite of what occurred on Apollo 13, I don’t think any of us were
really concerned about a life-threatening mishap. At least for myself, I was
chiefly concerned with only one thing: making a thoughtless mistake that
might jeopardize the mission or embarrass the crew. The survival aspect of
spacefight is something an astronaut deals with very early in his or her
career. Forever after your goals become increasingly narrow in focus: you
strive single-mindedly to be as prepared as possible for each task you’ll
face during the course of the ultimate voyage.
As the launch date approached, there was a growing sense of confidence
and unity with the crew and the extended team in Florida and Houston. We
seemed to function with common mind, as if each individual had been
absorbed into the anatomy of a larger organism. About a week before
launch we seemed to have reached our peak of readiness, not unlike an
athletic team that’s on a roll and cannot lose.