Of Walter & Apollo

View the video for "Of Walter & Apollo" here.

The symmetry of Walter Cronkite’s death as we celebrated the 40th anniversary of America’s first mission to the moon this week was striking for this particular newsman.
I grew up as a wide-eyed fan on the U-S space program during that era when we were reaching for the moon.
I couldn’t get enough.
Walter Cronkite was my eyes and ears.
From Mercury to Gemini to Apollo; from launch through the mission to splashdown, I followed it all with Walter.

Like many other kids back then, I wanted to be an astronaut.
When I came upon the cold sweat realization that my stomach wouldn’t stay in its rightful place during a simple roller coaster ride, I sadly acknowledged that I had the “wrong stuff.”
But darn, Walter had a pretty exciting job sitting there at the Space Center telling people what it was like to watch those rockets take off.
And so a budding young career was set in motion.

It was only fitting that I met Walter Cronkite when I was covering the first space shuttle launch.
What a thrill all the way around.
I would later have a chance to share that story with Walter a couple of years later at a Give Kids The World charity fundraiser.
I felt good about that.
In subsequent years we would actually have the chance to sit and talk space.
I didn’t realize it until watching all of the Cronkite retrospectives this weekend that we genuinely shared the “gee whiz, this is cool” approach to our space reporting.
That no doubt helped captivate me as a kid and formed my work in a way I didn’t realize.

I probably covered close to 30 space shuttle launches and landings, and rocket launches, and they never failed to thrill me.
I had that same “gee whiz, this is cool” reaction when I got to know one of America’s original moon walkers, Buzz Aldrin.
It was great to hear Buzz passionately make the case for Mars and more this past weekend.

I have been very fortunate to meet many of the heroes of my youth.
These were two of them.
Their orbits crossed once again this week.
They were at their zenith back in 1969 and will remain permanently etched in the memory bank of this particular newsman.