Apollo Veterans Eagerly Cheer NASA’s Artemis II Moon Return

The dwindling survivors of NASA’s oldest generation, now in their 80s and 90s, also want to see more enthusiasm for Artemis.

So few people remain from the original 400,000 that no gathering is planned to celebrate the Artemis II flight of four astronauts around the moon on April 1. Those living near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will watch the launch from their backyards.

“Because it was the first time, there was an energy. There was a passion that probably isn’t quite the same today and hasn’t been for a while,” said Charlie Mars, 90, who worked on Apollo’s command and lunar modules and helped found the American Space Museum in nearby Titusville.

Retired engineer JoAnn Morgan remains outraged that the last three Apollo moon landings were canceled under President Richard Nixon’s watch due to budget cuts, risk concerns and shifting priorities. When Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins launched a rocket to the moon in 1969, she was the only woman at launch controls. Three years later, Apollo 17 closed the great era.

“I’m just trying to survive so I can actually see us come back and land on the moon,” he said. “I am 85 years old and 53 years later I still feel betrayed.”

Morgan isn’t the only one upset about NASA and the country’s stalling.

“It’s a good thing I wasn’t in charge,” Mars said, “because I would be out there beating the bush and encouraging people to take action.”

A big difference this time is that it’s all women in key roles.

NASA’s Artemis launch director is Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. The Artemis II crew includes Christina Koch, who holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman with 328 consecutive days in orbit.

“This will be even bigger when they have a woman planting her boots on the moon,” Morgan said.

Apollo 16’s Charlie Duke points out that half the world’s population had not yet been born when he walked on the moon in 1972.

NASA’s new administrator, technology billionaire Jared Isaacman, who went to space twice at his own expense, is one of them.

Apollo old-timers are pleased that Isaacman, 43, has accelerated the pace of the Artemis launch to be closer to Apollo’s speed and safety record. Artemis can barely walk at a pace of one flight every three years, which Isaacman finds unacceptable.

He added a test flight in orbit around the Earth to practice docking with lunar landers before getting used to sending astronauts to the moon. And last week, he released a plan for a moon base expected to cost $20 billion over the next seven years, along with a battalion of lunar drones and rovers.

Carlos Garcia-Galan, NASA’s self-described “moon base guy,” promises “great cameras” on anything to add excitement.

The most important goal in the near term is to get the Chinese to the Moon’s surface. NASA aims to land astronauts in 2028 and China in 2030.

The United States surpassed the Soviet space program in the first race to the moon, landing 12 astronauts from 1969 to 1972.

John Tribe, 90, who led Apollo’s spacecraft thrust, thinks NASA’s revised Artemis plan “makes a lot more sense.”

“The other approach was ridiculous,” Tribe said. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to beat the Chinese.”

Apollo 9’s Rusty Schweickart also likes the revamped Artemis. When it comes to taking Apollo’s excitement to the next level, good luck.

“We can all remember Columbus,” Schweickart said in an email, but who can remember “who came 50 years later?”

Duke, one of four moonwalkers still alive, predicts Apollo excitement will return once the Artemis astronauts begin landing, especially for the younger crowd who may have missed it before.

“If the first ones are successful and we start going down to the south pole,” Duke said, “I think millions will watch. I know I will if I’m still here.”