An Experience I Never Imagined

As part of the Apollo 11 celebrations I had the opportunity to attend an event with several of the children of Apollo era astronauts. Having a chance to spend time listening to many children of the Apollo astronauts was an experience I never imagined and I want to thank the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation for arranging the event.

The moderator had a number of good questions prepared and a few questions were taken from the audience. It was interesting to hear stories of how they grew up, how friendships grew between the kids that lived in the same neighborhood or who spent hours playing as their parents tried to manage the demands of work and family life, having work sessions at home over the weekends. 

Learning about some of the staged photos for LIFE magazine was also entertaining. Rick Armstrong mentioned a picture of him in the swimming pool with a scuba tank and how they had never owned scuba equipment, it had been a prop basically. One of the other kids laughed and said it was probably the same they had used at one point. 

The question about whether they are now appreciative of all the media attention documenting their childhood brought responses I hadn’t anticipated.  Overwhelmingly, they said they do appreciate being able to look back and see so many experiences captured. Susan Lovell (I believe), told a story of searching online for a photo she remembered being taken but no one seemed to have a copy of. When she found it, she was offered the chance to purchase it! The audience laughed heartily at this. 

Living in Houston, surrounding by families who worked for or supported the space program in some manner, made their status as an astronaut’s child less impressive, so they didn’t grow up with the impression their dads were any different than other dads. Logically, that makes sense, when one lives in a bubble, they don’t typically recognize the exceptionality until they spend time outside of it. 

Close to the end of the panel, the moderator asked if any of the children had considered following in their father’s footsteps. Rosemary Roosa said she had submitted an application a number of years ago but been turned down due to her age, and Jan Aldrin’s brother, Alan, worked for United Launch Alliance (ULA) and now serves as the director of the Aldrin Space Institute at Florida Institute of Technology. None of the others expressed having any desire to become astronauts, but a few had children who work in support capacities.  

I’d love to have a similar panel with some of the Shuttle era children to see how things changed over the years. With a growing astronaut core, I imagine the hours became a little more balanced when not training for a specific mission, but I may be wrong. In all of the biographies I’ve read, the family balance isn’t typically mentioned.  

I believe this interview was videoed so it may be posted, at least in clips on the Astronaut Scholarship Foundations’s website at some point. I would highly recommend watching it if you are a fan of the early space program.