Charlie Duke

In Moon Walker: The True Story of an Astronaut Who Found that the Moon Wasn’t High Enough to Satisfy His Desire for Success, Charlie and Dotty Duke recount the stories of their lives, with Charlie’s military and astronaut career taking up much of the narrative. He recounts his training, the view that military aviators had of astronauts early in the U.S. space program, and his experiences at NASA as part of the Apollo 16 crew, structuring the book so that it alternates between the Apollo 16 mission and “flashbacks” to Duke’s youth and training, particularly the scientific training for the mission goals of the latter Apollo missions. Charlie Duke details everything readers could want to know, from the flight procedures through his impressions of things like the sunrise as seen from orbit and even the restroom procedures in-flight. The Dukes write in a clear, informative manner, though occasionally the tone resembles the quick-paced excitement of a Boy’s Life article. Moon Walker will appeal to those looking to learn more about the latter Apollo missions from those who flew them.… (mais)

I went through a phase about ten years ago of buying signed autobiographies by astronauts. I’d read them, and other books about space exploration, and review them on a blog, A Space About Books About Space, where I last posted a review in May 2013. That’s more or less where the Apollo Quartet came from. I’m still interested in the subject, although I’m no longer so zealous about buying the books. And I still have a number of them to read. Like this one, Moonwalker, by the LMP for Apollo 16. You expect certain things from astronaut autobiographies, such as how something they invented proved vital to the programme, or iconic to the US Space Race. But not from Duke. He loved every minute of it, and says so repeatedly. He also admits it pretty much destroyed his marriage. That is until some years after he left NASA when his wife joined some weird Christian sect and the two discovered God. Moonwalker is at least cheerfully honest. You have the opening section where Duke describes his early career, and admits he was a bit of a screw-up. Then there are the NASA years, when he was clearly having a ball, culminating in Apollo 16’s time on the Moon. And then you have his post-NASA career as, first, an unsuccessful mall developer and then as a Coors distributor… before finding God. When people claim to pray to God and he responds, I call bullshit. If you think you are hearing from God, then you are delusional. Both Dotty and Charlie Duke claim to do so in Moonwalker. They leave their decision-making to God – well, Jesus, as apparently their particular brand of Christian weirdness means accepting Jesus as the Son of God (and why the fuck do I keep on using init caps on this nonsense?) – anyway, they basically leave things to fate and when it pans out the way they’d hoped, OMG, IT’S JESUS! HE’S REAL! OMG! Gordo Cooper’s autobiography Leap of Faith was spoiled by his insistence that UFOs were real, and the same is true here: Moonwalker would be a more interesting book if the Dukes had not chosen to document their religious conversion. But on Apollo 16 alone, it’s a quite good read.… (mais)