Cliff was silent. He didn’t need to say anything. And, having forgotten to breathe, he probably couldn’t. His small, agape face announced that he now comprehended the miraculous. He was like a blind and deaf child suddenly cured... “So this is light! So this is sound!” At the 34th Space Symposium he learned something else. He and I had the honor to be seated with Buzz Aldrin at one of the Symposium dinners. The second man on the moon is a particular hero of Cliff’s, whose favorite book is Buzz’s No Dream Is Too High . Midway through the main course, Buzz and Cliff were in earnest conversation. Later I asked, “What did Buzz tell you about the moon?” “We weren’t talking about the moon,” Cliff said. “Mister Aldrin asked me, ‘Cliff, do you know what I’m famous for?’ I sort of didn’t know what to say. And he said, ‘I’m one of the few people who have ever seen the Titanic.’ So we were talking about the dive to the Titanic he made on the submersible, the Nautile, in 1996. Mister Aldrin told me you can’t that see that much – sort of the opposite of being on the moon.” “Dad,” Cliff said. “He’s explored more than anyone else ever has. He’s been as far up into space as any person has, and he’s been to the bottom of the ocean, too.” Cliff paused then said, “And he’s a nice guy.” “They usually are,” I said. “In my experience men and women who routinely face a lot of danger are nice. That is, when they’re not fighting a war or something.” “Buzz Aldrin was an F-86 pilot and flew
The Space Foundation is a nonprofit organization established, in the words of our mission statement, “to inspire, educate, connect, and advocate on behalf of the global space community.” How I got on its board – which is otherwise filled with astronauts, professors, engineers, senior business executives, retired military officers of high rank, and, of course, rocket scientists – I don’t know. Maybe they needed to bring the board’s average IQ down enough to give the Foundation the common touch, or maybe it was the amount of time I spent on Mars during the 1960s. Anyway, there I am. And ever since Cliff was little I’ve been taking him with me to space events. When he was in second grade I took him to Cape Canaveral to see the last space shuttle launch. It was a learning experience. He learned to stand in awe. The looming Atlantis shuttle, piggybacked on its liquid fuel tank and flanked by twin solid- fuel boosters, was 3.5 miles from the NASA viewing station, but it loomed anyway, as tall as a 25-storey building. There was a flash below the engine nozzles. A fiery glory poured out on every side. A few seconds later came the joyful noise, a trumpeting so powerful that the decibels would kill you if you were closer than 800 feet. The shuttle and its engines – the “full stack” as it’s called – stood almost still, trembling with the strength of 6,825,704 foot-pounds of thrust. Then it rose on a tower of smoke with the majesty befitting 2,030 tons of wondrous engineering.
He was like a blind and deaf child suddenly cured... "So this is light! So this is sound!"
American Consequences 93
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