HUNTSVILLE — None of the children attending Space Camp yesterday are old enough to remember any of the Apollo missions, but when 86-year-old Brig. Gen. Charles “Charlie” Duke, one of only 12 men to have ever walked on the moon, shared his experiences with them in front of a packed theater at the Davidson Center, his experience came to life for the space-happy cadets.
The lunar module pilot for the Apollo 16 mission was in Huntsville this week to celebrate NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the moon.
At Space Camp yesterday, he left them with nothing short of “True Tales from the Moon” dishing on everything from a controversial wrinkled America flag to moon shadows, moon feet and reasons why you should never fall into a moon crater.
Duke showed a lot of slides from his great adventure and spoke about the difference in size of the Apollo lunar module and the Artemis lunar module.
“The Artemis lunar module is four times as big as the Apollo 16 lunar module,” he said. “Artemis is like 100 feet tall, and they are going to be waaaaay up there when they land and first look down,” he said to laughter. “They will need elevators or something to get down onto the moon’s surface because you can’t climb down a ladder I don’t think, on moon feet!”
He explained that the moon is mostly gray in color with very fine dust-like powder.
“Everywhere you walk, you left your footprints; everywhere you drove, you left tracks; so, you couldn’t get lost on the moon!”
He also explained that shadows are very deep on the moon, but very bright in the sunlight and he said it was virtually impossible to get bored about being on the moon because everything you see is something you have never seen before.
“Every part of the adventure was a super experience,” he admitted.
Behind him on the screen were gigantic images of him on the moon with one showing him standing near the edge of what looked like a massive moon crater.
“You have to be careful not to get too close to the edge of these big craters as you can see because there is no way of getting out.”
One curious little cadet asked the question, “Why can’t you get out if you fall in? Can’t you just bounce out in zero gravity?”
Ahh! Good pop quiz question!
Gen. Duke reminded everyone the moon has 1/6th gravity and you cannot escape it. If you try to climb out, it is like climbing a steep sand dune; the surface sloughs off underneath you as you climb, and astronauts do not have safety ropes as part of their equipment.
“So, if you fall in one you may be staying on the moon longer than you think,” he said to raucous laughter.
He also addressed the controversies surrounding “fake” moon landings.
Duke blames himself for one of those controversies – a picture of him saluting a wrinkled American flag on the moon. For many years there have been theories the image of the flag “blowing in the wind” when there is no wind on the moon, was proof the whole thing was staged.
“The flag was not blowing,” Duke told the theatre full of excited kids. “It was held up by a little rod, but it was wrinkled because it had been packed away for six months. I couldn’t pull the wrinkles out of it, so I just planted it there,” he said to a clearly amused audience.
The last student asked what he liked the most about the whole journey to the moon and back.
“The most exciting part was the landing because it was very dynamic,” he said but then quickly clarified, “My favorite part? Lift off was spectacular, the landing was the most difficult and exciting, but reentry when you are surrounded by a ball of fire – all three were the most spectacular parts of the mission.”
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