Marianne Dyson: Fly Me to the Moon

Dr. Winkler listened silently. We entered his office and he asked us both to take a seat. While he shut the door, I saw that the newsfeed on his computer was following the lunar crisis. So, he already knew what was going on.

“Mr. Smith, please tell me how you think you can help those people on the Moon.”

Mr. Smith repeated that he could fly the simulator and create the program they needed. Dr. Winkler had Mr. Smith drink some pink liquid and then asked him some technical questions using terms I recognized from some of the flight simulations we’d played. I wondered if Dr. Winkler was also a pilot. I don’t know if it was the pink liquid or the joy of sharing a favorite memory, but when the doctor asked a number of questions about the Moon, Mr. Smith’s answers were surprisingly detailed. The only thing he was confused about was what the Russians had to do with an American woman on the Moon.

“I’ll have to notify your family,” Dr. Winkler said. Mr. Smith nodded.

Dr. Winkler then moved to the computer and tapped away at the keys. I got Mr. Smith a cup of water from the little sink in the corner and sat down again.

Dr. Winkler looked up at Mr. Smith. “I’ve got permission to release your records to NASA. Do you trust George, or do you want me to ask him to leave during the call?”

Ask me to leave ? What was going on ? Why would NASA be interested in his medical records ? Dr. Winkler sure was good at playing along.

Mr. Smith gave me the security guard look again. “He’s okay. He’s a training instructor.”

Dr. Winkler raised an eyebrow at that. “We take turns flying simulators,” I explained.

“I know,” Dr. Winkler responded. He did? I guess I should have known that the head doctor would keep tabs on the activities of his patients.

“And I know that his time with you has helped him retain some memories that are important not only to him, but perhaps to those people on the Moon right now.”

“Seriously?” I blurted.

Dr. Winkler smiled. “Yes, seriously. Now, George, Mr. Smith has agreed that it’s okay for you to be here during this call. I don’t know what you’ll overhear, but he’s trusting you to keep your mouth shut about it. Can you promise to do that?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Is Bob Smith really a fake name?”

Dr. Winkler didn’t have time to answer before the screen changed to an image of a serious-looking young man. “This is flight director Keegan Taylor at Johnson Space Center. I understand you have an old Apollo guy who thinks he can help us create a trajectory for Ms. Phillips to fly?”

“Can he hear me?” Mr. Smith asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Winkler answered. “I have two-way voice, but one-way video. I know how you hate cameras, Mr. Smith.”

“Yes, thank you,” Mr. Smith said. “You know who I am?” he asked.

“Your name is blocked out in the file I received, but I was told that you worked on Apollo.”

My grandfather had told me about Apollo, but even he had only been a kid back in the late 1960s. I wondered if Mr. Smith had worked on the program as a college student. That would put him in his eighties.

Mr. Smith cleared his throat. “I know how to fly the lunar module,” he declared. “I’m one of the astronauts who walked on the Moon.

I stared dumbfounded at Dr. Winkler. Why would he let Mr. Smith call NASA with a story like that? How embarrassing!

Mr. Taylor frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have time for crank calls. The last Apollo moonwalker died nine years ago in a car crash. If he were still alive, he’d have to be, like, a hundred years old.”

Dr. Winkler interrupted, “One hundred and three. Excuse me, Mr. Taylor, but please read the complete file I sent you. It will explain why you were led to believe that he had died.”

Mr. Smith was 103? Mr. Smith was an Apollo moonwalker?! Suddenly the fake name and the paranoia of reporters and his confusion about the Russians made sense. Reporters would have pestered him for reactions to space events, politicians would have insisted on his presence at anniversaries and special events, and his Alzheimer’s would have made it harder and harder for him to cope. His wife must have taken the brunt of it until she died in that car accident. Living here anonymously was probably the family’s way to give him some well-earned peace and dignity during his final years.

And I had doubted he was even a real pilot.

The flight director’s eyes grew round as he scanned the file Dr. Winkler had sent. “Oh, I see,” he said. “But considering his condition, Doctor, can we trust what he will tell us?”

“Memories associated with intense emotions and skills that were trained to the point of instinct are the last to be affected by the disease. He has also been refreshing those memories through flight simulations thanks to his young friend George here.”

I looked down at my sneakers in embarrassment. I was just having fun sharing a love of flying with Mr. Smith. I had no idea I was flying copilot with one of the most famous pilots in history! I wondered which one he was? Armstrong? Young? Cernan?

“Then let’s get started,” the flight director said. “We have photos and technical drawings that the Apollo Restoration Project sent us of the cockpit. These were made from an old NASA mockup that unfortunately was destroyed in a hurricane a few years ago. The computer switches and displays are all exactly as in the original, but the museum installed modern computers and communications. So we have the ability to create an autopilot. What we don’t have are any records of the actual flight-handling characteristics of the module. The best we have to offer is a children’s educational game developed by some engineering students at Texas A&M. It’s called Fly Me to the Moon.”

“That’s the one I brought with me!” I said. I dragged my laptop and hand controllers out of my backpack. “I’ve got it right here.” I flipped the screen open and started the boot process.

“I didn’t come here to play games,” Mr. Smith said.

“You don’t understand,” Mr. Taylor said. “It is not a game, it’s a simulator. The students used very sophisticated software to model the flight characteristics. What I’d suggest is that we set up the sim from here and have you fly a rendezvous with the cargo ship, noting any differences between the original and the simulator. Can you do that, Mr. Smith?”

“Sure,” he said simply. “Piece of cake.”

I wondered what cake had to do with anything? I glanced at Dr. Winkler. He smiled and whispered to me, “An old expression meaning something is easy.”

“Thanks,” I whispered back.

Dr. Winkler cleared off his desk for the computer, but Mr. Smith shook his head.

“I have to fly it standing up,” he said.

Mr. Taylor nodded. “He’s right. No seats in the lunar module. And Ms. Phillips will be wearing a spacesuit because we aren’t going to pressurize the module. Do you want gloves, Mr. Smith?”

“No, my hands are stiff enough without them!” he quipped.

Dr. Winkler and I laughed. I lifted a stool onto the desk and set the laptop on it to project against a white board on the wall. Mr. Smith placed the hand controllers at waist height on a book on the desk. He asked Dr. Winkler to close the window blinds and turn off the lights. I took care of the lights while Dr. Winkler closed the shades. It wasn’t really dark, but it would help Mr. Smith focus.

“Young man, come stand to my right,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m the commander, and you’re the pilot.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I decided he’d forgotten my name again.