Table Of Content

Son of Apollo Outward Odyssey A People’s History of Spaceflight Series editor Colin Burgess Son of Apollo The Adventures of a Boy Whose Father Went to the Moon Christopher A. Roosa Foreword by Jim Lovell UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS • LINCOLN © 2022 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The University of Nebraska Press is part of a land- grant institution with campuses and programs on the past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe- Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as those of the relocated Ho- Chunk, Sac and Fox, and Iowa Peoples. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Roosa, Christopher A., author. | Lovell, Jim, writer of foreword. Title: Son of Apollo: the adventures of a boy whose father went to the moon / Christopher A. Roosa; foreword by Jim Lovell. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2022. | Series: Outward odyssey: a people’s history of spaceflight. Identifiers: lccn 2022008550 isbn 9781496233349 (hardback) isbn 9781496234230 (epub) isbn 9781496234247 (pdf) Subjects: lcsh: Roosa, Christopher A. | Roosa, Stuart A. (Stuart Allen), 1933– 1994— Family. | Project Apollo (U.S.) | United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration— History. | Children of astronauts— United States— Biography. | Fathers and sons— United States. | Space flight to the moon— History. | bisac: biography & autobiography / Adventurers & Explorers Classification: lcc tl789.85.r655 a3 2022 | ddc 629.450092 [B]— dc23/eng/20220624 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008550 Set and designed in Garamond Premier Pro by Mikala R. Kolander. Contents List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. The Launch of Apollo 14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. The Roosa Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3. Growing Up in Claremore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4. Life after Claremore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 5. Flight Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 6. The Barrett Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 7. Meeting My Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 8. Early Family Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 9. Houston, Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 10. Getting on a Flight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 11. Apollo Casualties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 12. Pastimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 13. Apollo 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 14. Apollo 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 15. Apollo 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 16. Moon Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 17. The Country Western Tapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 18. Postflight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 19. Tales from the Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 20. Apollo Launches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 21. Astronaut Downtime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 22. Growing Up after Apollo 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 23. The Apollo Groupie Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 24. Apollo 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110 25. Reflections of an Apollo Command Module Pilot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 26. The Last Flight of Apollo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 27. Leaving nasa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 28. My Father’s Passing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 Illustrations Following page 64 1. Uncle Danny and Stuart at Yellowstone National Park 2. Unidentified individual and Stuart with his dog, Skippy 3. Stuart and unidentified individual 4. My parents’ wedding 5. Out celebrating a traditional Japanese meal 6. Family portrait with the addition of Allen 7. Stuart in front of an f- 104 Starfighter 8. My father in his major’s uniform in 1967 9. The fifth selection of nasa astronauts, the “Original 19” 10. Jungle survival training 11. Training for splashdown recovery 12. Mitchell, Shepard, and Roosa in front of the Apollo 14 Saturn V 13. My father’s parents peer into the Apollo 14 command module 14. Just a few hours from launch, my father looks so relaxed 15. The Apollo 14 crew in a jovial mood 16. Apollo 14 at liftoff 17. Apollo 14 at liftoff 18. Launch day at the astronaut viewing area 19. Launch day photo op of the wives 20. My father flying solo around the moon 21. Antares, separated from the command module to begin its descent 22. My father looking at the checklist during his mission 23. My father getting ready to use the sexton 24. My father drinking orange juice 25. Splashdown 26. Back on Earth 27. Speaking at a press conference 28. My father receiving back the container used to carry the moon tree seeds 29. Stuart Roosa Day in his hometown of Claremore, Oklahoma Foreword Fifty years after the launch of Apollo 14, the audacity of the Apollo program still stands— and astounds— as a testament to the tenacity and ingenuity of humankind. Stu Roosa and I were among the privileged few who flew those space missions, and both of us made it to lunar orbit— in my case, twice. While only twenty- four men flew those Apollo flights and “slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” their achievement was the result not only of thousands of scien- tists and engineers working steadfastly toward achieving an assassinated pres- ident’s national goal but of the families that supported them. We astronauts were family men, too, and our wives and children also “lived” the missions. Training for Apollo meant the astronauts were away from home for days, weeks, even months at a time. They also accepted that our passion for aviation and space meant they would live the highs of a successful flight— being invited to the White House and accompanying us on endless ticker tape parades in towns across America and the world— but also living with the possibility of a tragic and early death for the greater good of the nation. The Apollo kids often went to school with other astronaut kids— including those who had lost their fathers in training accidents that were a crucial part of the program. The moms, like Marilyn Lovell and Joan Roosa, ran the families during those long periods of time the fathers were away, as they did when we were military pilots. These absences and the background threat of never com- ing home were undoubtedly part of the learning experiences of the kids, but it was just the life we led. The families not only lived in the constant shadow of absent husbands and fathers; they did all of this on the meager wage of a military officer. It’s high time their voices were heard. Son of Apollo is a timely recounting of that extraordinary, unprecedented era of space exploration. It is told by Christopher Roosa, the eldest son of my good friend and fellow astronaut, Stu Roosa, command module pilot of Apollo 14.