#110: Space Age Sunsets

Over the last few weeks we have lost two US astronauts from the golden age of space exploration - Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman - and since I spent 42 weeks on the space race, I felt it was appropriate to take the time to eulogize those two explorers today. If you listen to end, you can find out the connection between Frank Borman, Buzz Aldrin, and one of the most iconic rock bands of all time, Led Zeppelin.

The Space Race series introduction music is Lift Off by kennysvoice.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Ghosts of Arlington and thank you for joining me for Episode 110: Space Age Sunsets

In the last month, we have lost two astronauts associated with the Gemini, Apollo, and shuttle programs- Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman; and since I spent forty-two weeks on the space race, I felt it only appropriate to take the time to eulogize these explorers. Funeral arrangements are still ongoing, so it is still not known if one or both will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. With that said, one of them was living in Arlington, Virginia at the time of his death so I think the likelihood of at least one becoming a Ghosts of Arlington is fairly high.

[TANSITION MUSIC]

Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II, known as Ken for most of his life, was born in Chicago, IL on March 17, 1936. Not long after his birth, he moved with his family to Florida when his father was hired by Eastern Airlines. Aviation became an important part of Mattingly’s life from a young age; he later recalled that his “earliest memories… all had to do with airplanes.”

He grew up active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved that organization’s second highest rank, Life Scout, before graduating from Miami Edison High School in 1954. After high school, Mattingly attended Auburn University and went on to receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1958.

After graduation, Mattingly was commissioned as an ensign in the US Navy and completed flight training in 1960. His first assignment was flying Skyraiders aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga from 1960-1963. You may recall from episode 105 that the Skyraider was the same single prop plane that Ultimate Wingman Bernie Fisher flew in Vietnam just a few years later when he earned the Medal of Honor. After his time with the Saratoga, he was transferred to the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and flew Skywarrior jets off that carrier.

In March 1965, near the end of his time on the Roosevelt, one of Mattingly’s colleagues was assigned to take aereal photo reconnisance of the Gemnini 3 lauch and convinced the future astronaut to come along with him. Little did he know at the time that Gemini 3 astronaut John Young would be his commander on the Apollo 16 mission.

Not long after the Gemini 3 launch, Mattingly was accepted to become a military test pilot. One of his instructors at the test pilot school was Charlie Duke, who would also be part of the Apollo 16 mission, and Henry Hartsfield, who Mattingly would command on the fourth shuttle mission.

On September 10, 1965, NASA began the selection process for its fifth group of astronauts. Mattingly had initially shown no interest in becoming an astronaut, but that changed while he was in test pilot school. From an initial pool of 351 candidates, now-Navy Lieutenant Mattingly was one of 19 selected to join the group that would go on to be known as the Original Nineteen.

During the Apollo 8 mission – the first mission to leave low Earth orbit and reach the moon – Mattingly played an important ground support role, serving as capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, during Apollo 8’s second television transmission and subsequent preparation for trans-Earth injection. He also trained as the backup command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission.

His role as backup pilot for Apollo 11 put him in position to be the command module pilot for the ill-faited Apollo 13 mission, but three days prior to launch, he was removed from the mission because he had been exposed to the German measles (though he never contracted the illness). As a result, he missed the dramatic in-flight eplosion that crippled the spacecraft but played a major role in helping the crew resolve the problem of power conservation during re-entry. In the 1995 blockbuster movie Apollo 13, he was portrayed by actor Gary Sinise. You can hear more about the Apollo 13 mission and Mattingly’s contribution in Episode 68.

When he was bumped from the Apollo 13 crew, Mattingly joined the crew of Apollo 16 – the fifth crewed lunar landing mission (Episode 71) – and remained in the command module while mission commander John Young and lunar module pilot Charlie Duke were on the lunar surface. After the lunar surface mission, during the transit back to Earth, Mattingly performed a deep space extra vehicular activity to retreave film and data packages from the exterior of the service module.

Following Apollo 16, Mattingly was assigned an astronaut managerial position in the space shuttle development program and went on to eventually command two shuttle missions. His first shuttle flight was 1982’s STS-4 in Space Shuttle Columbia, which was the fourth and final orbital test flight of the space shuttle. After completing 112 orbits of Earth, the STS-4 mission landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where Mattingly and shuttle pilot Henry Hartsfield were welcomed back to Earth by President Ronald Reagan. As Mattingly and Hartsfield were both graduates of Auburn University, Reagan recognized the pair as “you two sons of Auburn” in his welcoming speech.

Mattingly’s final foray into space was 1985’s STS-51-C, in the Space Shuttle Discovery, the shuttle program’s first Department of Defense mission.  During his astronaut career, he spent 21 days, 4 hours, and 34 minutes in space, including one cislunar space walk that lasted for 1 hour and 23 minutes.

Mattingly retired from NASA in 1985 and from the Navy in 1986 as a rear admiral (upper half). Following his military career, he worked for a few major private aeronautical contractors, including Grumman, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin. He was also a member of many organizations, including an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and a member of the US Navy Institute.

He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots Ivan C. Kincheloe Award which recognizes outstanding professional accomplishment in the conduct of flight testing, the Auburn Alumni Engineers Council Outstanding Achievement Award, and the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983 with several other Apollo astronauts, and was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997 with 23 of his Apollo colleagues. His name is also on the Astronaut Monument in Husavic, Iceland, commemorating 32 Apollo astronauts who went to Iceland for geological training in the 1960s.

Navy Rear Admiral Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II died in Arlington, Virginia on October 21, 2023. He was 87 years old. His funeral details have yet to be announced, but there is a very good chance that he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

 [TRANSITION MUSIC]

Frank Fredrick Borman II was born on March 4, 1928, in Gary, Indiana. Because he suffered from several sinus and mastoid problems in the cold and damp Gary weather, his family moved to Tuscon, Arizona, whose climate was much easier on Borman. He considered Tuscon his hometown. Growing up, he played several sports in school, including soccer, baseball, and football. He was also an honor student.

He took his first ride in an airplane at age five and learned to fly at age fifteen. While helping a friend build a model airplane shortly before graduating high school in 1946, his friend’s father asked Borman about his plans for the future. He said he wanted to go to college and study aeronautical engineering, but his parents couldn’t afford to send him to an out-of-state school and the University of Arizona nor Arizona State University had good aeronautical engineering programs at that time. His sports skills weren’t good enough to earn him a scholarship and he lacked the political connections required to secure an appointment to the US Military Academy, so he planned to join the Army and use the GI Bill to pay for college after his enlistment.

It just so happened that his friend’s father knew Arizona congressional representative Richard Harless, and though Harless had already had a principal nominee for West Point, Harless was convinced to list Borman as a third alternate. Borman took the West Point entrance exam, but since his chances of getting into West Point as a third alternate were slim, he also took the Army physical fitness test as a potential enlistee and passed both. But the end of World War II had changed attitudes toward joining the military and the three nominees ahead of him all withdrew.

Borman entered West Point on July 1, 1946, with the class of 1950. His first year at the academy was a challenging one. Many members of the freshman – or plebe – class were older than him and had seen active service in World War II. Hazing by upperclassmen was common and he nearly drownded learning to swim, but Borman stuck it out and successfully graduated on June 6, 1950, ranked 8th in his class of 670. Instead of joining the army, he chose ot be commissioned in the Air Force.

Borman attended basic flight training in Texas. As a top graduate he had his choice of which aircraft he wanted to fly and chose fighter jets and received his wings in December 1951. While many pilots were being sent to flight in the Korean War, soon after completing his training, Borman suffered a perforated eardrum while practicing dive bombing with a bad head cold. Instead of Korea, he was assigned to the Philppines and was taken off flight duty until his eardrum had completely recovered. 

After his stint in the Philippines, he returned to the US as a flight instructor in Georgia. In 1956, he was sent to California where he earned a Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. Then, from 1957-1960, he served as an associate professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point, after which he was selected to attend Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School which ultimately lead to his selection in 1962 as one of the Next Nine – NASA’s second class of astronauts.

For his first space mission, Borman was assigned as the commander of Gemini 7 – one of four members of the Next Nine given command during their first missions. Gemini 7 launched in December 1965 with Borman joined by Jim Lovell – the future commander of Apollo 13 – and performed a close rendezvous with Gemini 6, crewed by Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford. The two Gemini modules came within twelve inches (or 30 centimeters) of each other. Bornman looked out his capsule window in time to see Schirra holding up a sign to his windown that said “Beat Army.” Schirra, Stafford, and Lovell were all graduates of the US Naval Academy and had a good time ribbing their West Point colleague.

Gemini 7 spent a total of fourteen days in space and successfully returned to Earth on December 18. Shortly after the mission, Borman was promoted to colonel. At 37, he was the youngest full colonel in the air force.

After the January 1967 Apollo 1 fire killed astronauts Gus Grisson, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, Borman was selected as the only astronaut to serve on the nine-member review board that investigated the fire. Borman’s testimony before congress a few months later went a long way to convince congress that Apollo would be safe to fly again. After tough and sometimes hostle questioning, he told congress, quote, “We are trying to tell you that we are confident in our management, and in our engineering, and in ourselves. I think the question is really: Are you confident in us?”

In December 1968, Borman commanded the six-day Apollo 8 mission, which became the first spaceflight to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the moon. On the second day of the mission, Borman vomited twice and suffered a bought of diarrhea, which left a mess in the spacecraft. The crew cleaned up as best they could and Borman wanted to hide his illness from mission control, but he was out voted and the crew consulted with the folks back in Florida. After talking with everyone, the flight surgeon back the OK for the mission to continue and it is now believed that Borman was suffering from space adaptation syndrome, which affects one third of astronauts their first day in space as their vestibular system adjusts to weightlessness, though the syndrome was not understood at the time. The doc just thought it was either a 24-hour flu or a bad reaction to a sleeping pill. 

Regardless, the crew flew on to the moon with no more issues and orbited ten times without landing, before safely returning to earth. During the mission, Borman, Jim Lovell – who joined his Gemini 7 commander on this mission as well, and William Anders became the first humans to see and photograph the farside of the moon and an Earthrise.

Space Journalist Andrew Chaikin claims that after Gus Grissom’s death in the Apollo 1 fire, Borman became the top choice to command the Apollo 11 mission and become the first person to step onto the moon, but when offered the command, he turned it down. Long before Apollo 8 lifted off, Borman had decided it would be his last flight and that he was going to focus on getting ready to retire. His astronaut duties were putting undue stress on his family.

For the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, Borman was assigned as the NASA liaison to President Richard Nixon at the White House. He watched the launch from the president’s office and convinced Nixon, who had prepared a long speech to read to the astronauts on the Moon during a phone call, to keep his words brief and non-partisan. He also accompanied the president in Marine One when it flew to the recovery ship to greet the Apollo 11 crew upon their return.

In June 1970, Borman retired from both NASA and the Air Force. In August, he undertook another special presidential mission, a worldwide tour to seek the release of American prisoners of war held by North Vietnam. At the conclusion of his 25-day mission to 25 countries, he returned to brief Nixon. While the mission was not an abject failure, his fame failed to compensate for his complete lack of political experience and gravitas. He then appeared before an unusual join session of congress conducted at the reguest of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia in his capacity of presidential envoy. He noted that POWs were being treated poorly, and urged congress to quote, “not forsake your countrymen who have given so much for you.”

In 1976, Borman performed one more assignment for the military after a major cheating scandal at West Point. Faculty noticed remarkably similar answers on an exam paper for Electrical Engineering 304, a required course, that had been given to over 800 cadets to complete on their own. Cheating was a violation of the Cadet Honor Code – which simply states: a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do. – and cheater were subject to expulsion. Cadets were tried by 12-member honor boards of cadets that functioned as grand juries; but the system was prone to abuse, and those cleared on appeal to the five-member appeal boards of officers that functioned as courts were often punished with “silence,” a form of shunning where cadets would only speak with cadets being shunning when it was absolutely necessary to perform official duties. Borman was appointed to head a special commission and report to the Secretary of the Army. 153 upperclassmen were ultimately expelled. Eventually, 92 cadets were readmitted, and graduated with the class of 1978 after being made to repeate a year of school, while more the 60 others declined the offer of amnesty and chose to finish their education elsewhere.

Borman’s son Fredrick, of the West Point class of 1974, was accused of taking a bribe. It was alleged that while a member of a cade honor board, he had taken a $1200 bribe to fix a case involving two cadets accused of cheating. Fredrick was cleared of all charges after taking a polygraphy test. Borman’s younger son, Edwin, of the West Point Class of 1975, was also accused of improprieties, but there was no evidence to support allegations, and they were dismissed.

Just before his retirement in 1969, Borman became a special advisor to Eastern Air Lines and then completed Harvard Business School’s six-week Advanced Management Program. After he retired from both NASA and the Air Force in mid-1970, he was officially appointed Eastern’s senior vice president for operations and moved to Miami. When Eastern Air Line Flight 401 crashed in the nearby Everglades, he took a helicopter to the crash site, waded waist-deep through the murky swamp, and personally helped rescue many of the survivors and load them on rescue helicopters. While 101 people died in the accident, 75 survived thanks to the exhaustive rescue effort. 

In 1974, he was made executive vice president and general operations manager and was elected to Eastern’s board of directors. In May 1975, he was elected president and chief operating officer by the board. By December he was CEO and in December 1976, he was president of the board.

Eastern had not turned a profit since 1969, but under his leadership, by 1978 profits jumped to a record $67.3 million, but after sharing profits with employees and using the rest to improve the aircraft fleet, 1979 proved to be the last profitable year until 1985. Borman resigned in 1986, and while it was a personal defeat, it was hardly a personal financial disaster. He received a $900,000 severance package and drew a consultant’s fee of $150,000 a year until 1991.

Following his resignation, Borman served on the South African Board in inquiry into the 1986 airplane crash that killed Mozambican president Samora Machel.

After his second retirement, Borman and his wife Susan left Miami and moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico where he continued to work in a variety of business ventures. For a time he was the majority owner of a local Ford dealership founded by his son, Fred. But he was also a member of six boards of directors, including those of National Geographic and Home Depot. From July 1988 to August 1996, he served as CEO of Patlex Corporation, a small company that held multiple laser patents. In 1996, he published his autobiography, titled Countdown. 

In 1998, he moved to Montana, and bought a 160,000 acre cattle ranch and 4000 head of cattle. That same year, Susan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and he spent much of his time caring for her. Eventually, she was placed in a nursing home, but he continued to visit her daily until he death in September 2021. While in Montana, he also painstakingly rebuilt a rare World War II single-engine fighter, the Bell P-63 Kingcobra. It won the prestigious Grand Champion award and Borman personally flew it in airshows for many years. He did this while a member of the Society of Antique Modelers.

Following John Glenn’s death in 2016, Borman became the oldest living American astronaut.

Air Force Colonel Frank Frederick Borman II died of a stroke on November 7, 2023 in Billings, Montana. He was 95-years old. With his passing, Borman’s Gemini 7 and Apollo 8 crewmate Jim Lovell is America’s oldest living astronaut. He is 95 and was just eleven days younger than Borman.

In his lifetime, Borman received a slew of awards and recognitions. Just to name a few, he was a two-time recipient of the Harmon Trophy, awarded annually to the world’s most outstanding aviator or crew and was awarded the Collier Trophy as part of the Apollo 8 crew for achievements in astronautics. They were also Time’s men of the year in 1968. He received the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal for exploration, and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

He received honorary doctorates from nine universities and colleges and was one of ten Gemini astronauts inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982. That same year, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1990, was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame and he was part of the inaugural class of inductees in the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1993, he was among the second class of inductees into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.

There is one final Frank Borman fact that I came across that I had to include here to make sure that my parents hear it. My parents are both reformed hippies and to this day, one of their favorite bands is Led Zepplin. In October 1969, when Zepplin released their second studio album – so inventively titled Led Zepplin II. The cover art was based on a famous WWI photo of Germany’s Fighter Squadron 11, better known as the Red Baron’s Flying Circus. 

The Album artist, David Juniper, replaced four of the eleven German pilots’ faces in the photo with those of the members of Led Zepplin, he cut one pilot our altogether, and replaced heads of the remaining six with celebrities. Since the album was released just three months after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Juniper included Neil Armstrong’s head, or so he thought. As you may have guessed by now, he inadvertently mistook a photo of Frank Borman for Neal Armstrong. I will post the album cover on the website, but for the record, Borman is standing in the back row, second from the right, behind three seated band members; Over the years, many people have gotten Borman to autograph their Led Zepplin II albums right above his image. I’ll post a photo of that as well.

And while we’re on the subject, for Led Zepplin’s sixth album, Physical Graffiti in 1975, another artist attempted to include Armstrong on the cover. However, Peter Corriston also confused Armstrong for someone else and the image on the cover is actually that of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, a picture originally taken by Neil Armstrong.

Keeping with their space theme, then Early Days: The Best of Led Zepplin Volume One was released in 1999, the album cover art featured the band members in Apollo space suites, seated in front of of a star-studded night sky and a modified Apollo mission logo. The photo used for this ablbum was an official NASA photo of the 1971 Apollo 14 crew, astronauts Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell, and Stu Roosa, the third mission to land on the moon. Since there are four band mambers, but only three Apollo crew members, the fourth band member in a space suit was inserted into the photo.

As the years continue to pass, fewer and fewer of the astronauts from the golden ear of space exploration remain, but there is no doubt in my mind that their willingness to travel to and work in one of the most inhospitable environments known to man has earned them a place in humanity’s collective memory forever. They more than anyone else may embody Ben Franklin’s sentiments when he said, “Fear not death, for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.”