Dad and the Moon

Today is July 20, 2009 and in just about 20 minutes CST we will remember the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk.

I'm proud of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history is assured by the fact that there can be only one first man to take the first step on to the moon.

But on a more personal if less glamorous level I'm proud of my father, Dallas Evans. My dad was one of the thousands of Team Moon people who made Armstrong's walk and all the moonwalks that followed possible. His contribution to the space program was to design experiments to divulge the Moon's many closely guarded secrets.

Dad passed away in October 2003 just before his then-greatest love -- the unmanned mission to Mars with its Martian rover -- saw success. I like to think that wherever he was on THAT momentous day he was feeling a sense of euphoria all over again, just like that day so long ago in late July.

My father was a physicist whose interests in astronomy, meteorology, marine biology, and aviation landed him a job with the newly created NASA. Before the Johnson Space Center complex was built out on the rice fields south of Houston, my dad was already starting to gather data -- what little there was in the early 1960s -- about the atmospheres on the various planets. President Kennedy had given his instruction that America should go to the moon. My dad's first job was to help figure out what astronauts might encounter when they got there.

The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) consisted of various experiments bundled to fly on each of the lunar trips. My dad was the principal investigator or co-investigator on several of them:

LACE, the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, flew aboard Apollo 17;

CCG, the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (measured the lunar atmosphere), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, and 15;

SIDE, the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (measured effects of solar winds on the moon), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, 15.

My dad never seemed to mind the unrelenting work schedule during those heady Apollo days. Everyone was caught up in the dramatic drive to beat the Russians and to live out President Kennedy's dream. Around our house, spaceflight was always the topic on the table. A war was still raging in Vietnam but aside from the nightly news in black and white, it wasn't up for debate. My dad had no time to follow social trends or the latest Hollywood gossip. He was preparing to help put men on the moon, and nothing was more important.

Except me.

I am his only child, and despite his commitment to making history my dad still managed to make time for me. His excitement and awe at the incredible majesty and complexity of outer space was contagious and 40 years later I find myself grasping for the right words to infuse my own children with this same sense of wonderment.

I remember Neil Armstrong's grainy image on our black and white television that glorious day in July. I remember complete silence in the living room as my parents sat transfixed before the screen.

I remember knowing that this had something to do with Daddy's job, but being only three years old I wasn't sure what. Didn't men walk on the moon all the time, I wondered. I'd been hearing talk of spaceflight for as long as I could remember, and this seemed like just another episode of that dialogue.

It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the real significance of the first moon landing hit me, and in the strangest of ways.

I was sitting in a Luby's cafeteria located not too far from the Johnson Space Center waiting on a girlfriend to come through the food line and pay her bill. I'd found us a table and had sat down to start eating when for reasons unknown my eyes were drawn upward to a series of large photos on the wall in front of me.

There was the famous photograph of Earth -- you know the one that makes our planet look like a beautiful multicolored marble. As I casually studied it, trying to figure out which of the continents I was seeing beneath the cloud cover, I had a revelation.

Suddenly my father's accomplishments and the accomplishments of so many others came sharply into focus.

IF MEN HAD NEVER LEFT THE EARTH, WE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE.

The photo of our amazing planet is today ubiquitous, found on everything from flags and tee-shirts to bumper stickers and school notebooks.

But does anyone ever stop to think about HOW we came to have that picture?

Lives were put on hold as scientists like my father devoted countless hours to research, design, development, re-design, troubleshooting and more re-design of everything from experiments to astronaut suits and communication systems. I won't even try to fathom the science behind the rocketry that propelled our men into space.

Lives were lost and risked and risked again. Apollo 1 with its three astronauts incinerated by an oxygen leak during a test run in1967. Apollo 13 with its crew that nearly became lost in space in 1970. Apollo 11 and subsequent flights, all of them accompanied by a long list of "what-ifs" -- what if the men landed but couldn't take off again, what if they took off from the lunar surface but missed their one chance at a rendezvous with the orbiter, what if they made the connection only to have the return capsule burn up on reentry through the Earth's viciously hot atmosphere.

There were only so many contingencies NASA could prepare for. At some point, it was up to fate or luck or God.

Four decades later, we have learned much about spaceflight, the moon, Mars, and other planets and the knowledge is taken for granted. What should we as a people, a nation be doing with all of this. Spaceflight has become commonplace in just a little over 40 years. Have we lost our collective sense of awe? And what do we need to do to get it back? These and similar questions weren't even on the radar in 1969. No one would have believed that only four years later, the Apollo program would be scrubbed.

My dad never took the rocket ride into space like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins or any of the brave men and, later, women who would follow them, though I suspect he made that trip more than a few times in his mind.

No, on the whole he seemed content to share what he knew as an earthbound man, braving mosquitoes and smothering hot Houston nights to perch atop the trunk of our car in the driveway with binoculars or telescope for a mini-lecture on the worlds beyond our own.

I always loved my dad for who he was. But now, as an adult with children of my own, I can also love him for what he did to further our understanding of the handiwork of God. It's a legacy I'm proud to pass along to the grandchildren Dad never got to know, and I hope that some day, when they have children of their own, they will want to do the same.

The heavens declare the glory of Him Who made all things . . .