Charles Duke
Charles Moss Duke Jr. is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force officer and test pilot who, as Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days. Duke is one of four surviving Moon walkers, along with David Scott, Buzz Aldrin and Harrison Schmitt.
A 1957 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Duke joined the USAF and completed advanced flight training on the F-86 Sabre at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where he was a distinguished graduate. After completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter pilot with the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. After graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, he stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star.
In April 1966, Duke was one of nineteen men selected for NASA's fifth astronaut group. In 1969, he was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 10. He served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon. His distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world, as the voice of Mission Control concerned by the long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagle descent stage's propellant. Duke's first words to the Apollo 11 crew on the surface of the Moon were: "Roger, Twank...Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot!"
Duke was backup Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 13. Shortly before the mission, he caught rubella from a friend's child and inadvertently exposed the prime crew to the disease. As Ken Mattingly had no natural immunity to the disease, he was replaced as command module pilot by Jack Swigert. Mattingly was reassigned as command module pilot of Duke's flight, Apollo 16. On this mission, Duke and John Young landed at the Descartes Highlands, and conducted three extravehicular activities. He served as backup Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 17. Duke retired from NASA on January 1, 1976.
Following his retirement from NASA, Duke entered the Air Force Reserve and served as a mobilization augmentee to the Commander, USAF Basic Military Training Center, and to the Commander, USAF Recruiting Service. He graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1978. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1979, and retired in June 1986. He has logged 4,147 hours' flying time, of which 3,632 hours were in jet aircraft, and 265 hours were in space, including 21 hours and 38 minutes of EVA.
Early life and education
Charles Moss Duke Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 3, 1935, the son of Charles Moss Duke, an insurance salesman, and his wife Willie Catherine Waters, who worked as a buyer for Best & Co. He was followed six minutes later by his identical twin brother William Waters Duke. His mother traced her ancestry back to Colonel Philemon Waters, who fought in the American Revolutionary War.After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II, his father volunteered to join the Navy, and was assigned to Naval Air Station North Island in California. The family moved to California to join him, but after a year he was shipped out to the South Pacific, and Willie took the boys to Johnston, South Carolina, where her mother lived. His father returned from the South Pacific in 1944, and was stationed at Naval Air Station Daytona Beach, so the family moved there. In 1946, after the war ended, they settled in Lancaster, South Carolina, where his father sold insurance, and his mother ran a dress shop. A sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1949.
As a boy, Duke and his brother Bill made model aircraft. A congenital heart defect caused Bill to drop out of strenuous sports, and eventually inspired him to pursue a career in medicine, but golf was a sport that they enjoyed together. Duke was active in the Boy Scouts of America and earned its highest rank, Eagle Scout in 1946. He attended Lancaster High School. Duke decided that he would like to pursue a military career. Since his father had served in the Navy, he wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
As a first step, Duke went to see his local congressman, James P. Richards, who lived in Lancaster. Richards said that he would be pleased to give Duke his nomination, as a local boy. Richards advised Duke that he would still need to pass the entrance examination, and recommended that he attend a military prep school. Duke and his parents accepted this advice, and chose the Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida, for his final two years of schooling. Duke sat the examination for Annapolis in the middle of his senior year, and soon after received a letter informing him that he had passed, and had been accepted into the class of 1957. The Lancaster News ran his picture on the front page along with the announcement of his acceptance. He graduated from Farragut as valedictorian and president of the senior class in 1953.
Duke entered the Naval Academy in June 1953. He was no athlete, but played golf for the academy team. During a two-month summer cruise to Europe on the escort carrier, he suffered from seasickness, and began questioning his decision to join the Navy. On the other hand, he greatly enjoyed a familiarization flight in an N3N seaplane, and began thinking of a career in aviation. The United States Air Force Academy had just been established and would not graduate its first class until 1959, so up to a quarter of the Annapolis class were permitted to volunteer for the United States Air Force. In fact, more than a quarter of the class of 1957 did so, and names were drawn from a hat. At his commissioning physical, Duke was shocked to find that he had a minor astigmatism in his right eye, which precluded him from becoming a naval aviator, but the Air Force said that it would still take him. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in naval sciences in June 1957, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force.
Air Force
In July 1957, Duke, along with the other graduates of Annapolis and West Point who had chosen the Air Force, reported to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, for two weeks' orientation. He was then sent to Spence Air Force Base in Moultrie, Georgia, for primary flight training. The first three months involved classwork and training with the T-34 Mentor, while the next three were with the T-28 Trojan; both were propeller-driven aircraft. For the next phase of his training, he went to Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Texas, in March 1958 for training with the T-33 Shooting Star, a jet aircraft. He graduated near the top of his class, and received his wings and a certificate identifying him as a distinguished graduate, which gave him a choice of assignments. He chose to become a fighter pilot. He completed six months' advanced training on the F-86 Sabre aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, where he was also a distinguished graduate.Once again, Duke had his choice of assignments, and chose the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. This was at the height of the Cold War, and tensions ran high, especially during the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Duke chose the assignment precisely because it was the front line. Four of the 526th's F-86 fighter-interceptors were always on alert, ready to scramble and intercept aircraft crossing the border from East Germany.
As his three-year tour of duty in Europe came to an end, Duke considered that his best career option was to further his education, something that the USAF was encouraging. He applied to study aeronautical engineering at North Carolina State University, but this was not available. Instead, he was offered a place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in its Master of Science degree course in aeronautics and astronautics. He entered MIT in June 1962.
It was in Boston that he met Dotty Meade Claiborne, a graduate of Hollins College and the University of North Carolina, who had recently returned from a summer trip to Europe. They became engaged on Christmas Day, 1962, and were married by her uncle, Randolph Claiborne, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, in the Cathedral of Saint Philip, on June 1, 1963. They went to Jamaica for their honeymoon, but came down with food poisoning.
While he was courting Dotty, Duke's grades had slipped, and he was placed on scholastic probation, but the USAF allowed him to enroll for another term. For his dissertation, Duke teamed up with a classmate, Mike Jones, to perform statistical analysis for the Project Apollo guidance systems. As part of this work, they got to meet astronaut Charles Bassett. Their work earned them an A, bringing his average up to the required B, and he was awarded his Master of Science degree in May 1964.
For his next assignment, Duke applied for the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School, although he felt his chances of admission were slim given that he only barely met the minimum qualification. Nonetheless, orders came through for him to attend class 64-C, which commenced in August 1964 at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The commandant at the time was Chuck Yeager, and Duke's twelve-member class included Spence M. Armstrong, Al Worden, Stuart Roosa and Hank Hartsfield. Peter Hoag topped the class; Duke tied for second place. After graduating from ARPS in September 1965, Duke stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star aircraft. While he was stationed at Edwards, his first child, Charles Moss Duke III, was born at the base hospital in March 1965.
NASA
Selection and training
On September 10, 1965, NASA announced that it was recruiting a fifth group of astronauts. Duke spotted a front-page article in the Los Angeles Times, and realized that he met all the requirements. He went to see Yeager and the deputy commandant, Colonel Robert Buchanan, who informed him that there were two astronaut selections in progress: one for NASA, and one for the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. Nominations to NASA had to come through Air Force channels, so it got to pre-screen them. Buchanan told Duke that he could apply for both programs, but if he did, MOL would take him. Duke applied only to NASA, as did Roosa and Worden; Hartsfield applied for both and was taken by MOL.Duke made the list of 44 finalists selected to undergo medical examinations at Brooks Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas. He arrived there on January 26, 1966, along with two fellow aviators from Edwards, Joe Engle and Bill Pogue. Psychological tests included Rorschach tests; physical ones included encephalograms, and sessions on treadmills and in a human centrifuge. The eye problem that the Naval Academy had reported was not found.
The final stage of the selection process was an interview by the seven-member selection panel. This was chaired by Deke Slayton, with the other members being astronauts Alan Shepard, John Young, Michael Collins and C.C. Williams, NASA test pilot Warren North, and spacecraft designer Max Faget. These were conducted over a week at the Rice Hotel in Houston. In April 1966, a phone call from Slayton informed Duke that he had been selected. NASA officially announced the names of the 19 men selected on April 4, 1966. Young named the group the "Original Nineteen" in a parody of the original Mercury Seven astronauts.
Duke and his family moved to an apartment in League City, Texas, but when Dotty became pregnant again, they bought a vacant lot in El Lago, Texas, next door to astronaut Bill Anders. They met and befriended a young couple, Glenn and Suzanne House. Glenn was an architect, and he agreed to design them a house for $300. Ground was broken in February 1967, but the house was not completed before a second son, Thomas, was born in May.
Astronaut training included four months of studies covering subjects such as astronomy, orbital mechanics and spacecraft systems. Some 30 hours of briefings were conducted on the Apollo command and service module, and twelve on the Apollo Lunar Module. An important feature was training in geology, so that astronauts on the Moon would know what rocks to look out for. This training in geology included field trips to the Grand Canyon and the Meteor Crater in Arizona, Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, Horse Lava Tube System in Bend, Oregon, and the ash flow in the Marathon Uplift in Texas, and other locations, including Alaska and Hawaii. There was also jungle survival training in Panama, and desert survival training around Reno, Nevada. Water survival training was conducted at Naval Air Station Pensacola using the Dilbert Dunker.
Once their initial training was complete, Duke and Roosa were assigned to oversee the development of the Saturn V launch vehicle, as part of the Booster Branch of the Astronaut Office, headed by Frank Borman and C.C. Williams. He was part of the Mission Control team at the Kennedy Space Center that monitored the launch of Gemini 11 on September 12, 1966, and Gemini 12 on November 11, 1966. His personal responsibility was the Titan II booster. They frequently traveled to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to confer with its director, Wernher von Braun. NASA provided T-38 Talon aircraft for the astronauts' use, and like most astronauts, Duke flew at every opportunity.