Rick Green: 0:12
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us on WallBuilders today. We're always taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I don't know if you call moonwalking a hot topic, but it's obviously a great topic and it was so cool yesterday to have Charlie Duke with us one of only 12, to walk on the moon in the Apollo program and just an amazing guy. And yesterday, David, we talked about how you got to know him and the friendship that you struck up, and Tim mentioned that we had him at our legislators conference. So it's just kind of cool to have that relationship and the chance to have him on the program. And the interview went so well that it's actually going to take three programs for us to share the entire interview with folks, and so we'll pick up right where we left off yesterday.

David Barton: 0:50
But just to kind of recap what we've covered already, you know it was really kind of funny to me when he said that he became an astronaut because he saw a one ad in the LA Times asking for astronauts. That's not what I would expect to see in any kind of one ad. And of course, going back to newspaper with one ads who does that today, I mean? But still back at that point in time where he got in that program having a one ad from NASA seeking astronauts to go to the moon, that just seemed pretty amazing. And then just listening to him talk about the dangers that they face, I don't guess I thought about the dangers in that sense I didn't realize that the terrain of the moon was such that if they stumble into one of those craters, that's where they'll spend their remains because they're not getting out. There's no way getting them out, and so even just the psychological strength that takes to be able to do the things that they were doing on the face of the moon, that was really amazing to me. I don't think that I go anywhere today where I worry about something like that, about not being able to contact someone or get any help somehow or some way. But man, what they were doing, I mean there's just nothing there, there's nobody there. There's nowhere they can turn for help, and they didn't have the equipment they would need to get somebody out of a crater if they fell in it. And that was all new thoughts for me. I just hadn't thought about any of that.

Rick Green: 2:06
Yeah, David, you know there's a. There's a movie with Matt Damon about Mars. You know that's that's make believe him getting stuck on Mars and having to be there by himself. But this is the real deal. Like you said, charlie could have been stuck there. I mean, there's so many things that could have gone wrong, and so it's just kind of cool to actually get to relive this from 51 years ago. We're going to jump right back in where we left off yesterday. This is Charlie Duke, moonwalker, astronaut and strong believer and good friend of WallBuilders.

Charlie Duke: 2:33
So we decided I told John and let's go look at that rock over there. It looks like it's pretty good size. He argued a little bit but that went and I talked him into it. So off we went, and the more we jogged, the bigger the rock got. And so at the end of that cliff you heard man, that's our house rock, and it was about as big as a house. And we were standing there looking up at this big rock and and we got to get a piece of it. But I got this little hammer in my hand and you know, can what can I whack? So I did, and we got a piece of the rock, if you will, and it was probably the biggest rock ever sampled up on the moon of all the missions, and so we named it house rock. And then we had to jog back and it was slightly uphill going back, so it was a pretty good hike, but probably a quarter of a mile around the edge of that crater that we ended up jogging.

David Barton: 3:45
Wow. So where did that rock end up? I mean, what did they do with it? Where is it today? What happened with the experiments you guys brought back?

Charlie Duke: 3:53
That piece of the rock, we whacked off a hook of it and put it in our sample bag and we brought it back and it's probably been sampled partly. But there are probably 600 pounds of moon rocks still in the lunar lab at Johnson Space Center down in Houston and they partial them out every year a few kilos if you will, for experiments. We did a lot of experiments heat flow, which didn't work, the other ones, two seismic experiments and a magnetometer and then we had experiments that we took with us on the car and all that data was sent back and or either recorded and those samples were all recorded. We picked up a sample and you had the generally. We bagged it and it was a number on the bag and we described it what we were seeing and what kind of rocks it was. They had told us there's going to be a lot of volcanic rocks, but there weren't any and so it was unique in landing sites and the geologists, the professionals, got really, really excited when we started describing these rocks.

David Barton: 5:12
Wow. So you were talking about the car you had up there and I was watching some footage where that you were standing outside and John was kind of driving it and putting some limits on it. So listen to this clip.

Charlie Duke: 5:25
Man, you are really fast. Is he on the ground at all? He's at 10 kilometers. Huh, he's got about two wheels on the ground. Okay, turn sharp. I have no desire to turn sharp.

Rick Green: 5:44
Okay, here's his sharpie.

Charlie Duke: 5:47
Hey, that's great. He's a big rooster tail out of all four wheels and as he turns he skids the back end brakes loose, just like on snow. Come on back, john, hey, the deck is running. Then I'll tell you, Andy's never seen a driver like this.

David Barton: 6:06
That was great the car and you and John and various things. That was a pretty big sized car, consider the size of the lunar module. Did you guys have to assemble that after you got there?

Charlie Duke: 6:19
We had to unfold it. The chassis came in three parts, the front wheels folded up like landing gear on an airplane.

David Barton: 6:26
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 6:27
And then that front chassis folded over on top of the instrument panel and part of the seats, and the rear wheels did the same. The car was actually 10 feet by 5 feet, but they only had a storage area of 5 foot by 5 foot, so they had to make the chassis foldable so that it would fit in the spot on the lunar module on the outside where it was stored. And so once we got there, we released some of the pins that held it in place and then, when we got down onto the ground, we started pulling this pulley system, which was a bell crank basically, and cranked it out. It got out about 45 degrees and pulled all the pins and it sprang open like Lauren, the landing gear on an airplane. Wow it was a beautiful design. Then we made sure it was locked. The chassis were locked in place. Once we got it on the ground, we just picked it up and walked off with it a little bit and turned it around, and John got in and powered it up and drove off. It was fantastic.

David Barton: 7:33
That's great. So did you ever put it to the max? I mean, were you guys anywhere close to the max of how fast it would go, or was it just kind of regulated?

Charlie Duke: 7:43
No, it had no governor on it.

David Barton: 7:45
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 7:47
When we got down off of one of the craters I think it was Stone Mountain the second day out, john just sort of put full throttle and let it go and the speedometer only went up to 17 kilometers per hour, 11 miles an hour, and then it was a stomp on it. It wouldn't go any higher. We were against the stomp and I know we were going faster than 10 miles an hour, probably 12 or 15 or so. So it was really bouncy, but real stable. I mean it's amazing. You never felt like it was going to turn over on you. Though it did skid, like being on snow or ice, but you never felt that, had that feeling it was going to flip over.

David Barton: 8:33
Yeah, I heard you guys talking about certain areas had more magnetism than others. I know that on some of your trips you got out of sight of the lunar module. So what was navigate? What can you do to navigate? I mean, does compass work up there? What can you do to navigate?

Charlie Duke: 8:49
or just land maps. Well, the moon actually has no organized magnetism. There's some remnant magnetism up there. So in Apollo you landed early morning on the moon day, which meant the shadows were facing going west and so the shadow was your west and we had a gyroscope that. So we parked the work. Every day we start out, we drive. So we were pointing down sun and we had a little directional gyro on the instrument panel and we turned it. Those two seven zero was at the top and that was our direction, and we had a odometer, a little odometer that read kilometers, and on the rear wheel and and that was our distance, so the maps were degrees and kilometers and and we just followed the map. So we landed very close to where we had intended the land, so the maps were real good.

David Barton: 10:00
That's great. Well, I was watching you guys in the spacesuits and it looks like you're a couple of penguins whittling around. I mean, I never saw the knees bend on that stuff. It didn't look like it was very, very comfortable for that. And then we've collected a lot of Charlie Duke stuff for for museum and whatnot. And we've got a letter from, I think, back in 81, where that you were talking to a girl and saying well, you know, our space suit on on Earth weighed 362 pounds, only 60 on the moon. So I mean that's a sizable space suit. You got what made it so heavy. What you have in that, I mean what kept it from bending? How come it's so stiff?

Charlie Duke: 10:34
Well, it wasn't, the space suit, the whole thing, me and the space suit and the backpack which was our life support system at all. And I got all suited up moon boots, moon helmet, everything the whole enchilada. If you will weigh 363 pounds, Wow. So I weighed 152 back then. The space suit was about, the backpack was about 150 and I think the space suit itself was like 60, so or so. So you add all that up and it was 363 pounds down here. But up on the moon divide by six.

David Barton: 11:11
Yeah.

Charlie Duke: 11:12
So it was a little stiff. You couldn't bend it the way or pull up you know, like you couldn't step bend at the knee either, but you, it had a bend at the knee, but it was really stiff and the only time I found out it would you could bend. It was when I fell down a couple of times and I did several push ups to get up and you and I could rock back. Oh, my feet and my knees that were on the ground and finally, with your spring up. So, but it wasn't too uncomfortable actually, and it was. It was that you're able to do a pretty good job of working, picking up for us and things like that, the things. That was, that got tired with squeezing the gloves. You had to squeeze the glove to grip a hammer or a rock or whatever, and so after eight hours you're beginning to cramp up a little bit in the form you know, like squeezing a ball for eight hours.

David Barton: 12:24
Yeah, wow. So, charlie, we need to take a break here. We'll be back in just a minute on the WallBuilders show.

Tim Barton: 12:41
Hey, this is Tim Barton, with WallBuilders, and, as you've had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling and if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

David Barton: 13:42
Welcome back to the WallBuilders show, charlie. Let's pick up on what we were talking about just before the break. With all you've got I mean you've got oxygen and everything else that you need and that how long can you stay out in that suit before you have to go back and refill recharge?

Charlie Duke: 13:57
It depended on how hard you were working, and so the EVA was designed for about seven to eight hours, and at the end of eight hours you were generally on your just about to go on your reserve oxygen and our cooling water was also a limit, because you get real hot in the suit it's like working out in a refrigerator, you know and so it gets real hot, and so you had a cooling garment and that had cooling water and that was a limit on the consumable. So generally, seven and a half to eight hours was the maximum you could stay out.

David Barton: 14:49
So here's a clip on one of the weather forecasts they gave you one day, april 22nd.

Charlie Duke: 14:55
The lunar surface temperature in the sun should be around 135 degrees today.

David Barton: 15:00
So if you got 135, I know that's hot, so obviously you had to have some kind of air conditioner for the suit. How cold did it get? I mean, what was the range you guys dealt with and had you stay cool when it was that hot?

Charlie Duke: 15:14
We had a liquid cool garment that we wore on the inside and this garment was had about a quarter inch diameter tubes worn through it and they all came together on a manifold that's fit on your stomach and these tubes were filled with water and in the backpack. So you plugged that on to the inside of your suit and on the backpack we had a tank of water and a pump. So it worked like a car radiator, wow. So you turned it into the front and turned it on and it pumped water through these tubes and that would pick up the body heat and it take it out to the backpack where it was exposed to the vacuum and it just flashed off into a gas with the heat with it. So it was very efficient and we had a minimum, intermediate, maximum position and I never did go to the maximum. It was freezing and so generally when we were working you would work at intermediate and then when you got into the rover you got a switch and you flip it back to men and that was plenty comfortable.

David Barton: 16:39
So how cold did it get while you guys were there? Was it always hot like 135, or was it cold as well?

Charlie Duke: 16:44
No, it depends on the angle of the sun. David, in Apollo, you were there always in daylight a day on the moon, from sunrise to sunset, two weeks.

David Barton: 16:56
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 16:57
And so you had two weeks of daylight, two weeks of night on the moon. So we landed early morning on the moon day, and when we landed it was probably 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

David Barton: 17:12
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 17:12
So when we left it was 250 degrees, I think, of Fahrenheit, so it was, but that's just the surface temperature of the soil and your suit protects you from that heat, but, as I said, the body heat was your problem and without a heat, without a cooling garment, you had heat stroke in about 30 minutes.

David Barton: 17:39
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 17:42
So as the sun got higher and higher in the sky, the surface temperature got hotter and hotter, but that wasn't a problem because it didn't radiate heat. It boiled a little bit, but most of the heat was absorbed into the soil.

David Barton: 17:59
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 18:01
And so it was the body heat that worried you.

David Barton: 18:05
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 18:05
So picking up one experiment with an aluminum frame that we had to bring this experiment back in. So I picked it up and I could feel the heat from that aluminum frame through my glove.

David Barton: 18:20
Wow.

Charlie Duke: 18:22
But so it was very hot. Probably the gloves had a limit of 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

David Barton: 18:28
Wow, man, I've never heard a two week lunar day. That's amazing and that hot. So just looking at stuff that happened with you and that you guys took, I know that every astronaut took some personal effects. I remember Buzz Aldrin took a challenge to the moon, had communion before he stepped out of the moon, and so we've collected various personal effects from various astronauts. And I heard a song done a few years ago by a group called Striker Brothers. You've heard it and it was about Merle Haggard having given you some country western stuff. So here's that clip real quick. That was great, just hearing that when it's happening. But my curiosity is how much personal stuff could you take and why did you choose the stuff you choose? I, you know every astronaut. I guess they're going to have reasons. Why did you take what you took to the moon?

Charlie Duke: 19:38
well, each of us had to. We could take two hours of music and I chose country music because that's my favorite, and this jockey and Houston, bill Bailey Pasadena. Actually I Called him up and said, bill, give me some country music. So you got it. So so I get these two hours of tape back and and I plug one of them in going to the moon. And it was hey, charlie, this is Dolly Parton and and Porter Wagner and we did the special program for you. I hope you and John and Ken like it and that was a half hour. Then Merle Hacker came on. He did a half hour program and then Buck Owens came on and he did a half hour program and finished up with Chet Atkins and Jerry Reeve. And so my neighbor around a corner as a country music Stars named Randy Rogers, and so this was in in New Braunfels, and so I gave him one of the tapes and, and so he could listen to it, he got really excited. He said can I write a song about that? So he and Robert Earl Keane wrote that song you just play. Charlie Duke took country music to the moon and and and so it was a big hit and All the guys of both John and Ken love us. They weren't country music fans when they went, but we when they became, I think. And so it was, that was one of the things, but that wasn't counted towards us. We each had a what was called a pilot preference kit, ppk, and we could, as long as it wasn't flammable, and they approved what you put in it. So I had a picture of the family that I took and left up on the moon and I had several pieces of jewelry for moms and wife and Sisters and stuff, and then I had flags, American flags, texas flags, things like that, just personal items that some people wanted me to take, close friends. I took a few things and and the lunar module, it like wave, like eight ounces was your limit, but the command module you could, there was no limit. So we took some medallions that we had minted and those kind of things that we talked, and then we parcel them out when we got back and and we brought back a lot of of the lunar module and we could keep that kind of stuff. You know, I have the shovel that I used up on the moon and let's see, I don't have the hammer, but John has the hammer and we did have brought back a lot of stuff like that and some of that, so some of it's been in museums and and some I still have in my possession.

David Barton: 22:54
Man, that's great. So with all you guys did and with all the history that's there, I might have jumped into something that's a lot less fun, but it's ridiculous. But I remember watching you guys and I watched the news and the takeoff and the splash down, all the stuff that happened. And then it wasn't long after that, we had these kind of crazy deniers start popping up to said now, you guys didn't go to the moon, that was all made up by Hollywood. And did you ever have anybody say that to you? That you, you actually didn't do what you know that you did?

Charlie Duke: 23:25
Oh yeah, lots of time. And I said why don't you believe it? They gave me some. They give me, they give you some loosey-goosey Explanation well look, there's a black sky, and NASA was so stupid that they forgot to put the stars in the sky. And I said dummy, it was, the sun was shining, and so you don't see the stars. When the sun shines, and and and the the, you never see the sun, the stars in space, unless you're on the dark side of the earth and the dark side of the moon it's always daylight and so you don't do look out, it's always black sky. Well, anyway, there was a lot of other little things like that, but they just ignorant of what actually happened. You can see our right now. I think 10, 12 years ago there was a satellite put in orbit around the moon called the lunar reconnaissance Orator, and it's. It had a camera with, I think, four or five feet resolution and it took pictures of all of the Apollo landing sites. And you can see our car, you can see a decent stage, you can see experiments, package, and Then there's 600 pounds of rock that we brought back to the totally unique. And so if anybody doubts that they're willfully ignorant, I think, and because the evidence is overwhelming, that we landed on the moon.

Rick Green: 25:03
Alright, folks, we've got to interrupt the interview with Charlie Duke one more time. We'll pick up where we left off today, we'll pick that up tomorrow and that'll be the conclusion of the entire interview. But, David, as we're going into tomorrow, what can people expect for tomorrow's conclusion with the interview?

David Barton: 25:19
Well, it's going to be fun to see what he says. The response is to the deniers, because we asked him about his generation. There were deniers there, but how about the young guys? You know Tim mentioned at the start yesterday. There's a lot of people who doubt that this ever happened, and so you know, I know we're going to get in that tomorrow for sure.

Tim Barton: 25:37
Well, guys, I am excited to ask him some of those questions and you know I thought it was even fun hearing about some of the personal effects he took with him taking country music to the moon. You know just so many fun things that you don't necessarily think about. And just giving context, and you know already some Dad you got to ask him a little bit about some of the deniers in their day and some pretty solid responses already. But as you hear some of these details and stories, it begins to make sense that this is a real event, this wasn't something that was fabricated. And again, tomorrow I'm excited about asking more questions and unfolding this a little bit deeper, hopefully to gain even more context for again rising generations who just don't know the whole story. But man, already incredible to this point, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Rick Green: 26:26
Alright, folks, don't miss tomorrow. It'll be the conclusion of our time with Charlie Duke. You've been listening to WallBuilders.