Charlie Duke served in five of the seven Apollo missions dedicated to landing on the moon and is one of the few remaining members of the original crew that actually walked on the lunar surface. He talks about the importance of the moon landing and some of the conspiracy theories that surround it.
00:18:54.220And when you're there and and so you look out at the horizon and there's this very distinct horizon and you just look up and it's just black.
00:19:06.380Except for the Earth, which is in our case, you couldn't see it really goodly.
00:19:13.060So it was we didn't want to come home.
00:28:19.000You know, if we had to change this spacecraft, this system, you could convince the spacecraft manager or the Apollo manager that this was necessary.
00:33:50.960It's amazing to me how quickly the world changes sometimes.
00:33:54.720Russia recently stopped a massive grain deal, pretty much guaranteeing that the world's food supply will be diminished.
00:34:00.860And that's just one issue our world is facing right now.
00:34:04.320There are all kinds of things, especially when it comes to food, and you do not want to get caught unprepared for the difficulties that lie ahead.
00:34:12.020That means you really need a proper supply of emergency food on hand before disaster strikes.
00:34:17.600You're going to breathe easier knowing that you can feed your family in a crisis and you don't have to worry about the fragile nature of our food supply and our and our chain.
00:34:26.820I recommend going to Patriot Supply, my Patriot Supply.
00:36:34.900All of the scientists that worked on the V-2 and the German rocket program.
00:36:40.520And I think they said, you're going to work on this program whether you like it or not.
00:36:49.640And that was just the way Germany, these people were commanded.
00:36:53.480And so I think when the war was winding down and von Braun was convinced he didn't want to go to Russia because he saw what they were like, they were like.
00:37:07.240So he knew that the U.S. was a better choice.
00:37:11.060And they came to U.S. and the Army put them to work in the missile command.
00:37:17.580And I think their allegiance to the U.S. was always good.
00:37:22.200And they changed over and they were very – the ones I met of his upper echelon, Kurt Debus and Struel and the others at Marshall that worked for von Braun were outstanding citizens.
00:37:43.380And they loved America and they loved the space program and they wanted to commit to the – once NASA was formed to the peaceful exploration of space.
00:37:56.840Prior to that, they were working for the Army Missile Command.
00:37:59.380But in providing us expertise because it was being – those missiles were being developed anyway.
00:38:08.120And so why not take advantage of the knowledge they had?
00:38:12.600What did you do with – how did you know him?
00:38:31.480So Stu Russo and I got put on a – that was our job and was to go and monitor the development of the Saturn rocket and then report back to the astronaut office.
00:38:42.700And so monthly, we would fly to Huntsville, Alabama at the Marshall Space Flight Center and attend Werner von Braun's monthly management meetings.
00:39:36.160And so they developed this massive rocket that was – until the space launch system, SLS, is about to launch.
00:39:50.000It's more powerful than the Saturn, but, I mean, we – it was a tremendous machine.
00:39:58.480And Werner von Braun was behind it and his team, and they did a fantastic job not only to monitor the design and the changes, but also to launch it.
00:40:12.120But Kurt Debus at Kennedy Space Center was one of – von Braun's original team, and they were responsible for the launches and did a fantastic job.
00:40:27.120Why did we stop going to the moon besides disinterest?
00:43:25.760Somebody said, and I don't even understand that, there's a radiation belt in between Earth and the moon, and they say you can't get through that.
00:43:44.920So it was, that was no problem in Apollo.
00:43:50.600You're, you're, you're below, in Earth orbit, you're below that, but when you leave for the moon, you accelerate to 25,000 miles an hour, and then you're through those belts within minutes.
00:44:09.120Were we concerned about that belt the first time we went through?
00:44:17.020What they were concerned about was the radiation on the moon, and, and if we had a solar flare, how would we protect the crew?
00:44:26.960And then the, the big, not misunderstanding, but the biggest unknown was, you know, if the moon is 3 billion years old, it's been collecting dust for 3 billion years, and will you sink into the dust?
00:44:48.280And a lot of the scientists thought that, so we landed surveyor to, to make sure we weren't going to sink out of sight when we landed, and there was surveyor sitting right on the top of the moon, and I mean, surface, and, well, I mean, it might be dust, but it's going to be compacted or something, you know, and it's true.
00:45:11.340I, I shoveled, I had a shovel, and I dug a trench, and, uh, near where we landed, and, uh, as the flight plan called for, and I got down to, I could only get three feet, uh, but as I shoveled, it was still dust, but it had a great bearing strength.
00:45:30.160It was, it was actually pulverized rock, and when you analyze, look at it on a microscope, it's jagged, but when you.
00:45:51.680I've heard that the footprints, you don't make footprints on the moon.
00:45:55.800You don't make footprints on the moon.
00:45:57.140I don't know who these people are that come up with this or what they're using, but you can make footprints on the moon, and then I've also heard that the footprints aren't deep enough.
00:46:04.380Well, uh, they, they would, it depended on your weight, I guess.
00:46:12.880If you weighed 500 pounds, you know, you're going to make a deeper footprint than I do at, uh, 300 pounds in my suit.
00:46:20.060Uh, and, uh, but you, you always left your footprints.
00:46:24.100You never, and we drove the car, uh, Glenn, and we never worried about getting lost on the moon because the tracks were always there.
00:46:32.580You just did a turn and follow your tracks back, and, uh, so, uh, you can see that.
00:46:38.700You can see the tracks in the photographs from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and, um, and so it's, uh, evidence is overwhelming.
00:46:49.140What do you, didn't we leave, um, like a measuring mirror or something on the moon?
00:46:55.120Uh, it was, uh, a, uh, uh, yeah, I, now you got me a mental blank on, it was a, uh, a, a reflector.
00:47:04.620And you could beam a laser on and get a reflection from this object, and we didn't, we didn't leave one on our flight, but several before did, and so.
00:47:55.140We had, um, uh, Jim Irwin on, uh, Apollo, uh, 15.
00:48:01.180And, uh, after he got back, uh, he, uh, became an evangelist, uh, and had high flight foundation, Colorado Springs.
00:48:11.460And, uh, he quoted scripture on the moon and, uh, Buzz Aldrin had communion, Christian communion on the moon.
00:48:19.040And, uh, uh, uh, and then Apollo eight quoted from Genesis, uh, on that first TV back of the earth.
00:48:29.980So there was some spiritual input, but I, I didn't never had any, I didn't feel like I had a time, uh, to, uh, philosophize or to, uh, laughter.
00:48:45.180And, uh, so it was, uh, I was busy, uh, the whole time with focused on the, um, on the procedures and the, you got to get this job done, you know?
00:48:59.820Remember back in the day when you could do all the normal things you wanted to do in a day without feeling like you were made entirely out of broken glass.
00:49:07.880Remember when you didn't have to decide whether or not it was worth it to do something because it wasn't going to hurt you to do it.
00:49:15.560Living with pain is not a joke and it's the kind of thing that just wrecks your life.
00:49:20.140It just will consume so much of your day.
00:50:19.160It was in the, as he walked down, as he walked down the lam, he pulled a handle that deployed what was called a MESA, the modular equipment assembly, modular equipment storage assembly, storage area, whatever it was.
00:50:51.560It's grainy, but it was, it was in that assembly.
00:50:55.260And then once we got off, they, they took the camera and put it on a little tripod, if I remember, but on a, on our flights when we had the car, we had a camera in the same area and we deployed the car.
00:51:13.900And then I took the camera and stuck it on the car.
00:51:16.780So, uh, as we drove, uh, we, we took pictures ourselves because the TV, the antenna was going like this as you bounced across the moon and it couldn't point it at the earth.
00:51:32.480So when we stopped, we pointed the antenna at the earth, turned on the TV, and then they controlled it from mission control.
00:51:39.300There was a guy sat there, he could, he could change the focus, he could change the, uh, everything.
00:51:45.080He could tilt and move it around and we just turned it on and they, they took all the pictures.
00:51:51.020Um, people say the flag is a dead giveaway because it's waving and there's no, there's no way a flag is waving.
00:51:59.380Well, the flag was vacuum packed Glenn for six months.
00:52:04.760And, uh, and when I unfolded it, I couldn't get the wrinkles out and they didn't give me an iron.
00:52:12.920So, so I pulled on the flag and got most of the wrinkles out and stuck it up.
00:52:19.080It looks like it's waving, but it's not.
00:52:21.360If you did, and I took a picture once we got the flag up, I took a picture and in 72 hours later,
00:52:30.120I took another picture and the same wrinkles, the same weightiness and it's held out by a curtain rod or aluminum rod.
00:52:41.880And so it's all of these things that they say like this are just easily explained, but nobody wants to believe it.
00:52:49.420They, they got this thing, you know, and now the earth's flat, you know, and all that stuff.
00:52:55.520I can't believe that people are saying that.
00:52:58.540How do you feel about, how do you feel about the, um, uh, the mission to Mars?
00:53:04.420Not the government, but now all these private companies.
00:53:09.740Uh, I think, uh, that was one of the greatest things that, uh, as, uh, a giant leap, if you will, for, uh, for the space program was, uh, uh, SpaceX's and Blue Origins and all, uh, getting involved.
00:53:24.880And, um, you know, NASA never made a thing.
00:53:32.080We wanted to do this and that and the other.
00:53:33.800And so we hired the companies that built it for us, Grumman and North American Rockwell and Rocketdyne and all of the people that were manufacturers and we gave them contracts.
00:53:57.580And NASA says, yeah, we'll tell you, we'll buy that and we'll buy this.
00:54:02.080And so they're, and they're really good at, at making changes and low overhead.
00:54:07.380And, and NASA said, uh, basically has given them three or three or four of them, uh, big contracts to, uh, so SpaceX been the most successful Blue Origins, uh, coming along.
00:54:20.940And, uh, uh, and, uh, uh, another one with, uh, Boeing, uh, to help.
00:55:03.120Why does it seem that we have, we're not using, it seems like we're not using the technology that like the Saturn five rocket that we know works and is dependable.
00:55:18.060Uh, new rockets and new designs, uh, are, uh, uh, can be difficult.
00:55:26.700Uh, and so this big one that blew up at, uh, Boca Chica, uh, in Texas, uh, was, uh, uh, just a failure, but they have had tremendous success.
00:55:40.000Uh, uh, SpaceX has launched the astronauts, uh, in their SpaceX capsules and they've even recovered the booster.
00:55:49.600And so the technology is a lot farther along than we did.
00:55:53.380I mean, we threw everything away, uh, as we used it in Apollo, uh, you know, the first stage and, uh, it came back in and, and some of it survived.
00:56:05.260Uh, uh, uh, I think, uh, uh, Bezos found five of the Saturn five S one engines, uh, 12,000 feet down on.
00:56:15.980And they've been, they've been restored and, and de-barnicalized or whatever you want to call it, uh, by, uh, uh, space and rocket.
00:56:25.100No, not space and rocket center, the, uh, Cosmosphere out in Hutchison, Kansas.
00:56:30.040They're tremendous, uh, the restorers of space artifacts.
00:56:34.120Do you believe her in UFOs, alien life?
00:56:38.660Uh, no, I don't believe in alien life.
00:56:41.160Uh, uh, uh, I believe, uh, that the, uh, they are, uh, God showed me a specific answer to two prayers, that they're demonic and that they're, uh, uh, demonic beings that are making an appearance, uh, and appear to be real.
00:57:00.540And they are real, uh, uh, angel, uh, Satan Bible says angel, uh, Satan can appear as an angel of light so, uh, they can appear.
00:57:11.540And so, uh, nothing human can make a 90 degree turn at 3000 miles an hour and survive.
00:57:19.460And so they have these, and I think the purpose is to draw you away from the, the, the real, uh, God and say, look at us.
00:57:30.940And this is where you ought to be because we are superhuman and, and we can do it.
00:59:31.900The things that were deteriorating is not the exterior.
00:59:34.540It was just the, uh, inner, inner pieces, the, the rubber and all of that stuff.
00:59:40.200So anyway, they took it back and now they're all at the Smithsonian, but I think you can, uh, I've seen, um, uh, uh, suits that are what I would call, um, training suits, uh, from Apollo.
01:00:05.920I mean, you can, uh, I've got things and, uh, we were able to keep, um, which after a big fight, uh, we were able to keep some artifacts that we brought back from the moon, but there's nothing like a space suit, uh, that we would bring back from the moon.
01:00:23.340Well, we had, uh, some of the stuff that we used on the lunar surface, the, um, uh, the shovels, the rakes, uh, uh, uh, those kinds of things.
01:00:32.460And then you could, once the spacecraft was used up in the lunar module, you could take the netting array off of it.
01:00:40.360And, uh, some of the checklists and stuff like that that we'd used.
01:00:47.440Not only did we use it to help debrief, uh, the, the missions, but, uh, then, uh, we were able to keep that.
01:00:57.080But it turned out, uh, uh, Congress finally, there was a big, uh, debate, well, it's government property, but Congress finally passed a law that says, uh, all the Apollo artifacts or, uh, that were brought back or the, the, that are in the private hands, the, uh, the astronauts, uh, have the authority to keep them.
01:01:19.160Um, so, and then, and when you go, yeah, they'll probably take them back.