Astronaut relates lunar experiences
by Jennifer Bentley, reporter

     Man has looked at the moon, worshiped the moon, talked about the moon and set his calendar by it for centuries. But it was in the late 1960s that man could finally walk on it. 
     Astronaut Richard Gordon was one the men to go to the moon, and he recently spoke at TCC about his career with NASA, his walk on the moon and life during the ’60s.
In 1963, during the height of the space race between the then Soviet Union and the United States, Gordon was picked to be an astronaut and put in the Project Gemini program.
     “What did we have to learn to get to the moon?” Gordon asked in describing the Gemini program.
     The program’s intent was to make sure the human body could endure the rigors of space for 10 days, the length of time it would take to get to the moon and back. Gordon went up in Gemini 12 and discovered during his spacewalk that for man to perform adequately in space, he would need footholds.
     “It was like trying to tie your shoelaces with one hand,” Gordon said about his experiences during the spacewalk.
     However, Gordon was satisfied with his Gemini mission, saying that they learned a great deal about what was needed to go to the moon.
     The Gemini project ended in November 1966, after testing the equipment as well as the men who would eventually go to the moon.
     As a member of Apollo 12, Gordon went to the moon and was part of the team that proved an accurate landing on the lunar surface was possible.
     The crew brought back several samples of lunar rocks, soil and pictures of the lunar geography.
     Gordon also talked about the other Apollo missions, including Apollo 1, during which three astronauts died during routine practice in the space craft.
     Then he explained that the accident created better safety measures, including a redesigned escape hatch.
     Gordon was also part of the first joint U.S. and Soviet space program, Skylab, in 1975.
     Describing the environment of the ’60s Gordon quoted Dickens: “‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.’”
     Americans had recently suffered through the deaths of a president, a civil rights leader and a presidential candidate.
     Gordon would have been commander of the Apollo 18 crew, but the program was scratched by then-president Richard Nixon.
     “To this day I still hold a grudge for what he did,” he said.
     The Vietnam War was raging, and American men and women were dying overseas in foreign lands while at home, students rioted and were shot down on campus.
     But it was also the best of times, he said, as true freedom was reaching Americans as the civil rights movement and the feminist movement started gaining power.
     Ending his speech, Gordon offered encouragement to the students, “If you’re going to take risks, you will fail on occasion, and we learn more from our failures than we do our successes.”
     Gordon retired from NASA in 1972 and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in March of 1993. He is now an executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints.