edgar-mitchell

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The move to Houston was of a different sort than those before. This
time there was a greater sense of expectancy, and I was hopeful that my
own buoyed spirits would serve to make this transition less tedious for the
family. Nevertheless, Elizabeth was concerned that the new owners of our
old car might not take good care of it; Karlyn, now almost 13, was worried
about how her tropical fish would endure the trip...
On one of my shuttles between Los Angeles and Houston, I drove out
to the airfield with the jar of exotic fish in the seat beside me. Then I took
the brightly colored creatures, suspended in their watery world, to the
T38 trainer jet, and carefully strapped the bowl in the back seat. A few
minutes later the fish and I gently arced into the pale blue sky over Southern
California and headed toward that magical city of Houston just a few
knots slower than the speed of sound. I’d been reminded that, a few years
before, I had carried Louise’s split-leaf philodendron to its new home in
the bomb bay of a P2V while ferrying the plane to our new destination. I
could do no less for Karlyn’s fish.
We planned to build a new house in Houston near the space center, as
the bankers now looked upon us more gently and nicely than before.
Though we had always spent more on our quarters than the military housing
allowance, the new place seemed to be a mansion. Life was good; a
new momentum propelled daily life. There was the sense that we were
being carried along by historic forces. The space missions occupied a portion
of the nightly news, and what we saw on the television affected what
occurred in our own kitchen. It was a strange and invigorating phenomenon.
At the Cape, and here in Houston, the general mood of our astronaut
group was manically gleeful—we couldn’t believe we got paid for
such work. Neither before nor after had I the privilege of working with
such brilliant and motivated people as those at NASA in these years.
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