So Near and Yet So Far by Ten-Four – Setting the Scene
This puzzle came about because I was lucky enough to be in Washington DC on business earlier this year. Whilst there I spent a free afternoon at the Smithsonian in the Mall – I had naively assumed that would be enough to see all I’d want to see. As it was, I spent all my time in the Air and Space museum, and could have happily spent as much time there again!
I was fortunate in that I arrived just in time for the guided tour (free, as is the museum itself). Highlights of the tour include the original plane the Wright Brothers flew on 17 December 1903, the “Spirit of St Louis” in which Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic, the Friendship 7 capsule in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, a piece of moon rook that you can touch (it is claimed that anything you wish for while you touch it will come true… sometime in the next 4.5 billion years) and the command module of Apollo 11, which of course was the first space vessel to take men to the moon with the purpose of landing on it.
As we were shown around the (incredibly small) command module, our guide gave us a little pop quiz. Could we name the first man to set foot on the moon? Neil Armstrong we duly answered. And could we name the second man to set foot on the moon, from the same mission? Buzz Aldrin, came the reply. And could we name the man who flew with them but never set foot on the moon?
“Michael Collins!” I cried out triumphantly. Our guide smiled and congratulated me, but I think in her eyes was the gleam of “Smartypants – you destroyed the point I was trying to make”. For of course it is a truism that where we all know the men who first set foot on the moon (although how many of the other ten can you name?), poor Collins is relegated to a footnote, forgotten by all except trivia buffs and know-it-alls. As if flying all the way to the moon only to never set foot on it wasn’t bad enough, it was actually the case that whilst the whole world was watching Neil and Buzz take their giant leap for mankind, Collins was orbiting the other side of the moon, in radio silence from the whole event.
So it was that I decided to compose a puzzle in honour of the men who flew the module but never got to walk on the moon. The starting point was pretty much the finished puzzle – unclued entries would be the pilots in question. The only change was when it occurred to me that Apollo 13 should probably figure in the puzzle somehow, but as a special case. So Swigert was put in the grid to be found rather than as an entry in his own right.
Ironically, Swigert is probably the most famous of all the module pilots. It says something about human nature that though we naturally remember heroes far better than the people who stood behind them in support, we remember the (sometimes heroic) failures even more, especially when they get blockbuster films made detailing their exploits!