edgar-mitchell

Sea of Sky 49
be done about the attacks of vertigo and impaired balance. Such a diagnosis
would, of course, put any pilot or astronaut out of business.
But six years later, in 1969, after a risky and experimental operation,
Al was seemingly cured, and began lobbying NASA management for a slot
on a lunar flight. Gordon Cooper was retiring, and he, along with Don
Eisle and myself, had been the backup crew for Apollo 10, which presumably
placed us in line as the prime crew for Apollo 13. Al successfully campaigned
to fill Cooper’s assignment, and selected Stuart Roosa and myself
as his team. Stu was already as knowledgeable about the command module
as I was about the lunar module.
Deke Slayton and the management at Houston had approved the move,
but their decision was overridden by the powers that be at NASA headquarters.
They felt quite strongly that Al should have more time to train
for the complexities of a lunar mission. It was decided that we exchange
missions with Jim Lovell’s Apollo 14 crew, who had trained as backup for
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins on Apollo 11, so that the overall flight schedule
would not be affected. Of course, we were all disappointed that our lunar
expedition would be postponed for at least six months. But the decisions
were prudent ones, even though, to the bull-headed test pilot’s ego, they
seemed more a personal affront.
But blessings often arrive unannounced. Sometimes they come disguised
as misfortune.
In April of 1970 another Apollo stack stood on the pad at Cape
Kennedy, poised to land two more Americans on the moon. I wouldn’t be
one of them, but that would come in good time; all traces of envy were
now consumed by the job at hand. That day we had another flawless launch,
another flawless translunar injection burn, and three of my friends were
apparently headed for a full-up mission. Both the crew on the ground and
the crew in space had this space travel thing down. For three days I listened
to the happy progress on the headset as I sat before the console at
mission control in Houston. The brilliant telemetry on the monitor before
me showed all systems working in lovely harmony. Then one of the astronauts
reported a strange, muffled “boom” coming from the service module.
At the very same instant I saw the system parameters lilt simultaneously
before me on the monitor. Then the dials silently fell to minimum levels.
Fuel, power, battery, oxygen—all seemed to have fluttered into the vacuum
of space. Then came Jack Swigert’s voice, saying with stoic control, “Houston,
we have a problem.”
When I looked about the control room everyone seemed to be checking
first their wits, then the telemetry. No one had any idea what had happened.
Perhaps nothing at all but a loss of telemetry. After checking and doublechecking
the data, however, we all knew it was for real. A grisly tension