Overall Thoughts
The thing that makes “Falling To Earth” an amazing book is that you’re getting someones first-hand thoughts on what is what like traveling to the moon. To me, that alone is worth reading this book. Al Worden was a command module pilot for the Apollo 15 mission that went to the moon in 1971. For those that don’t know, this mission to the moon (while not the first), is considered one of the greatest missions ever completed due to the ground-breaking scientific discoveries and risks involved.
Long story short – Al got a call from NASA 4 months after his mission with the news that he was fired. Al takes the reader through his early days, through the mission, and what is was like coping with a small mistake for the rest of his life.
Impactful Quotes
“I would make some sandwhices, head out into the forest, find a tree to sit under, and just enjoy feeling completely disconnected from everything and everyone. No one knew where I was or could bother me, and I was as isolated from other people as if I had been on the other side of the moon.”
Al is describing his childhood in the first chapter of the book and I thought this quote was well-written and ironic. At the time, I doubt Al knew he would one day be looking down at the Earth from space feeling that same sense of isolation.
“Even though we were in quarantine, we could still keep ourselves sharp with some flying. We’d head over to Patrick Air Force Base, just south of our launch pad site, making sure not to interact with anyone on the way. Then we flew around in T-38’s, which allowed us to have fun and shake off tension. There is a lot of pressure right before a flight, and flying allowed me to relieve it…Naturally we couldn’t fly too close to our launchpad, but I took the time to look in that direction, miles away. What I could see was spectacular…The gleaming white Saturn V rocket looked like a toy from ten miles away, but it was still very visible. As I flew closer and compared it to the surrounding landscape, the scale really hit me. Our rocket was enormous.”
Just imagine you are days away from going on a mission to space… you’ve never been to space before, and although you’ve done everything you can to prepare there is still an unknown element to it. Now imagine getting into a jet and taking off for some flying to relieve some stress. Now imagine seeing the spaceship that you are putting all your trust in to take you to space… while you’re flying a jet. Goals.
“The last face I remember seeing was Guenter’s, smiling and waving an enormous crescent wrench at me. Then the heavy hatch closed with a deep thunk. That was it: we were truly on our own, cut off – committed.”
Al is describing the process of getting into the spaceship and getting ready for takeoff. This quote is so intense because Al is describing the last person he saw before the spaceship took off. Once that hatch closed that was it. It isn’t like Al could have cancelled the entire launch. He was committed, and he was going to the moon. He might not have made it back, and he knew that. I’m sure this was an intense moment.
“Ironically, I had journeyed all this way to explore the moon, and yet I felt I was discovering far more about our home planet, our Earth.”
This is a great quote because of the irony.
“Even though I talked about the flight every day at work, the mission began to take on an air of unreality. It was as if I had gone to my father’s theater as a child and become totally immersed in a movie, forgetting there was another world out there. Now the movie was over, and I was out on the street as cars and people went by, back in the real world again. The moon flight was an episode in my life that felt totally out of context; I didn’t know how to place it in my mind.”
Wow. Al is describing what it felt like after the mission was complete. Can you even imagine traveling to the moon on that being back on Earth like it was nothing? I just came back from Australia and the feeling that I traveled so far in such a short amount of time was unreal. I can imagine going to the moon would be beyond unreal.
“At the funeral service for him [his father] up in Michigan, as my mother stoically received his ashes, I pondered the bitter irony. I’d lived a dangerous life, flying high-performance jets and a space mission. My easygoing father had always played it safe. And yet here we were at his funeral. I was glad I’d lived an adventurous life, because it didn’t seem to make any difference in the end. If it was your time, it was your time.”
An interesting thought about life and death.
“Sometimes, while I sit and enjoy the good company of my family, the moon will slowly rise above the trees. I generally don’t pay it much thought. But occasionally I am reminded of my brief glimpse into infinity while alone on the moon’s far side. I still have lingering querstions about what I experienced. The answers won’t come in my lifetime. That will be your job. Try it, sometime. Some dayt all of us who journeyed to the moon will be gone. Take a walk on a summer night, look up at the moon, and think of us. A part of us is still there and always will be.”
This was the last paragraph of the book and I couldn’t think of a better way it could have ended.
You can buy “Falling To Earth” at this link – “Falling To Earth”.