Table Of ContentSon of Apollo
Outward Odyssey
A People’s History of Spaceflight
Series editor
Colin Burgess
Son of
Apollo
The Adventures of a Boy Whose Father Went to the Moon
Christopher A. Roosa
Foreword by Jim Lovell
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS • LINCOLN
© 2022 by the Board of Regents of the
University of Nebraska
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
The University of Nebraska Press is part of
a land- grant institution with campuses and
programs on the past, present, and future
homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-
Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw,
Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as
those of the relocated Ho- Chunk, Sac and
Fox, and Iowa Peoples.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-
Publication Data
Names: Roosa, Christopher A., author. |
Lovell, Jim, writer of foreword.
Title: Son of Apollo: the adventures of a boy
whose father went to the moon / Christopher
A. Roosa; foreword by Jim Lovell.
Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2022. | Series: Outward odyssey: a
people’s history of spaceflight.
Identifiers: lccn 2022008550
isbn 9781496233349 (hardback)
isbn 9781496234230 (epub)
isbn 9781496234247 (pdf)
Subjects: lcsh: Roosa, Christopher A. |
Roosa, Stuart A. (Stuart Allen), 1933– 1994—
Family. | Project Apollo (U.S.) | United
States. National Aeronautics and Space
Administration— History. | Children of
astronauts— United States— Biography. |
Fathers and sons— United States. | Space
flight to the moon— History. | bisac:
biography & autobiography /
Adventurers & Explorers
Classification: lcc tl789.85.r655 a3 2022 |
ddc 629.450092 [B]— dc23/eng/20220624
lc record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008550
Set and designed in Garamond Premier Pro
by Mikala R. Kolander.
Contents
List of Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. The Launch of Apollo 14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Roosa Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Growing Up in Claremore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Life after Claremore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Flight Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. The Barrett Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7. Meeting My Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8. Early Family Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
9. Houston, Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10. Getting on a Flight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
11. Apollo Casualties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
12. Pastimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
13. Apollo 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
14. Apollo 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
15. Apollo 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
16. Moon Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
17. The Country Western Tapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
18. Postflight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
19. Tales from the Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
20. Apollo Launches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
21. Astronaut Downtime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
22. Growing Up after Apollo 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
23. The Apollo Groupie Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108
24. Apollo 17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
25. Reflections of an Apollo Command
Module Pilot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
26. The Last Flight of Apollo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118
27. Leaving nasa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
28. My Father’s Passing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130
Illustrations
Following page 64
1. Uncle Danny and Stuart at Yellowstone National Park
2. Unidentified individual and Stuart with his dog, Skippy
3. Stuart and unidentified individual
4. My parents’ wedding
5. Out celebrating a traditional Japanese meal
6. Family portrait with the addition of Allen
7. Stuart in front of an f- 104 Starfighter
8. My father in his major’s uniform in 1967
9. The fifth selection of nasa astronauts, the “Original 19”
10. Jungle survival training
11. Training for splashdown recovery
12. Mitchell, Shepard, and Roosa in front of the Apollo 14 Saturn V
13. My father’s parents peer into the Apollo 14 command module
14. Just a few hours from launch, my father looks so relaxed
15. The Apollo 14 crew in a jovial mood
16. Apollo 14 at liftoff
17. Apollo 14 at liftoff
18. Launch day at the astronaut viewing area
19. Launch day photo op of the wives
20. My father flying solo around the moon
21. Antares, separated from the command module to begin
its descent
22. My father looking at the checklist during his mission
23. My father getting ready to use the sexton
24. My father drinking orange juice
25. Splashdown
26. Back on Earth
27. Speaking at a press conference
28. My father receiving back the container used to carry the
moon tree seeds
29. Stuart Roosa Day in his hometown of Claremore, Oklahoma
Foreword
Fifty years after the launch of Apollo 14, the audacity of the Apollo program
still stands— and astounds— as a testament to the tenacity and ingenuity of
humankind. Stu Roosa and I were among the privileged few who flew those
space missions, and both of us made it to lunar orbit— in my case, twice. While
only twenty- four men flew those Apollo flights and “slipped the surly bonds
of Earth,” their achievement was the result not only of thousands of scien-
tists and engineers working steadfastly toward achieving an assassinated pres-
ident’s national goal but of the families that supported them.
We astronauts were family men, too, and our wives and children also “lived”
the missions. Training for Apollo meant the astronauts were away from home
for days, weeks, even months at a time. They also accepted that our passion
for aviation and space meant they would live the highs of a successful flight—
being invited to the White House and accompanying us on endless ticker
tape parades in towns across America and the world— but also living with the
possibility of a tragic and early death for the greater good of the nation. The
Apollo kids often went to school with other astronaut kids— including those
who had lost their fathers in training accidents that were a crucial part of the
program. The moms, like Marilyn Lovell and Joan Roosa, ran the families
during those long periods of time the fathers were away, as they did when we
were military pilots. These absences and the background threat of never com-
ing home were undoubtedly part of the learning experiences of the kids, but
it was just the life we led. The families not only lived in the constant shadow
of absent husbands and fathers; they did all of this on the meager wage of a
military officer. It’s high time their voices were heard.
Son of Apollo is a timely recounting of that extraordinary, unprecedented era
of space exploration. It is told by Christopher Roosa, the eldest son of my good
friend and fellow astronaut, Stu Roosa, command module pilot of Apollo 14.
