The Light of Earth by Worden Al;French Francis; & Francis French

Author:Worden, Al;French, Francis; & Francis French [Worden, Al & French, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS036060 History / United States / 20th Century
Publisher: Nebraska

Apollo 15

Al Worden

Hey, that’s me!

Apollo 16

Ken Mattingly

I never really understood Ken Mattingly. He’s an unusual guy. Quiet, almost introverted. Secretive. I found him a touch strange.

Ken was extremely competent as an astronaut and pilot. He was highly regarded at Edwards in the test pilot school. He was a hard worker who really knew how to do what he was supposed to do. He did his job, did it well, and never said anything much to anybody. I always liked Ken, but he wasn’t the kind of person you could get close to. He seemed indifferent to human interaction.

He was almost monastic; he seemed so uninterested in any of the partying or even any of the women around, despite being one of the few bachelor astronauts back when we were selected. He was the anti-Swigert in that regard. He kept very much to himself.

I initially thought he was so quiet and so reserved that he was lucky to get the astronaut job. But he was really good at it. That’s why he was selected early for an Apollo mission. He even went on to command a couple of early space shuttle flights. I’d gladly have flown to the moon with him, because he was an excellent pilot and engineer. But you’d never know it, talking to him.

Only three of us—Ken, Ron Evans, and I—orbited the moon solo with a scientific instrument bay. We’re also the only ones who did a deep space EVA (extravehicular activity) on the way back to Earth. We had a lot in common, so you’d think there would have been a lot of training together. There was none. After training Stu Roosa, Farouk El-Baz shifted to me, Ken, and then Ron, one after the other.

I don’t remember even talking to Ken about any of it after I got back to Earth, other than some off-the-cuff conversations and suggestions. Ken was out on his own track. I fixed the procedures for the EVA before I flew, and then those two guys did it pretty much the same way as me. Ken was the kind of guy who, when you gave him a certain procedure to follow, followed it by the numbers. He was really disciplined.

Today, I think he still avoids things. He’s extremely picky about what he does, and he doesn’t care what you think. He values his time, and he doesn’t do much in public. He retired from the U.S. Navy as a rear admiral and spent the next couple of decades in lofty positions with aerospace companies, working on space projects. He’s quite verbal in Washington. I believe he’s still a very highly paid consultant there—and that’s fine. He’s got to do what he’s got to do.

I felt bad for Charlie Duke when the fortieth anniversary of Apollo 16 rolled around in 2012. Other surviving crews got together for some kind of public commemoration. Ken didn’t want to. He told Charlie that Apollo was a long time ago—almost another life. But that’s exactly why we celebrate historical anniversaries, because they are long ago.

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