Walk on the Moon after astronauts trod different paths

After walking on moon, astronauts trod various paths
It turns out to go to the moon is a tough act to follow.

For all its Buck Rogers, "Right Stuff" history-making performance is the question for many of the 12 astronauts who walked on the Lunar surface, beginning four decades ago after each was "a giant leap for where exactly?"

"You have top experience in 38 or 39," said space historian Andrew Chaika, summarizing their collective experience ", and [they] find it difficult to come up with something to do for an encore.”

Apollo 11 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 16 1969. Four days later, the first man walked on the moon's surface 10 more Americans came at the end of 1972.

In the 40 years since the Apollo program was the first man to the moon, the astronaut’s lives have taken different paths.

Almost all had been military test pilots before accession NASA; later in life, they were ministers, politicians and conspiracy Buffs. Some struggled with the question: Many of their marriage fell apart and alcoholism affects at least one.

In the most extreme cases of post-Apollo adjustment, Buzz Aldrin - the second man to set foot on the moon - was a car sold in Texas.

"Not very successful," says 79-year-old Aldrin soon recognize.

Apollo 11 lunar module pilot station for flying fight against depression and alcoholism is well documented, most recently in his own memoir, "Magnificent Desolation".

As a brief stint Hawking Cadillac at the end of 1970-century, Aldrin told CNN Radio, "Most people who have received some degree of public recognition is relatively well-off financially. If not the case with the astronauts.

Others took more existential, even spiritual, methods to deal with their lunar experience.

Apollo 15 Lunar Module Pilot Jim Irwin left NASA and became a Baptist minister. Apollo 14 crew member Edgar Mitchell spent years investigating the possible extra terrestrial life, in April; he went public with claims of a government cover.

Apollo 12 moon walker Alan Bean, now 77, has spent the intervening decade since his landing in 1969, his impression of the Lunar experience on canvas. "This is how it felt to walk on the Moon" is the title of one of his paintings, which now fetch prices start at $ 20,000.

These paintings are the only painting in history from another place, but this country, "Bean told CNN.

Not all the Apollo astronauts' flight after the trip has been so important.

America's first man in space, Alan Shepard, who later went to the moon in 1971's Apollo 14 missions, became a millionaire businessman.

Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt - a geologist at the time and the only scientist to do lunar voyage - served one term as U.S. senator from New Mexico, but was defeated in a series of new election in 1982.

Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins served as a senior official at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Air and Space Museum.

And the first man to leave Footprints in the Lunar dust, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong - but geologist Schmitt, the only other civilian in the collection of moon walkers - later Saturday on several corporate boards and the Presidential Commission which examined the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster.

Armstrong is also known for a number of conflicts related to autographs of He Long ago stopped signing because he discovered his signature was sold for profit.

He has also defendants Hallmark in 1994 with his famous "One small step" quote in a space-themed Christmas ornament. News's suit was settled by the court for an undisclosed sum.

Armstrong's hair cuts were known. In 2005 he was threatened with legal action after learning of his time Barber had sold a lock of hair for $ 3000.

All parts of the territory, "says Chaika.

His book "Voices From the Moon" is based on interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts, and he concludes there is no "moon syndrome" sent moon walkers down paths Odder than a few dozen former colleagues in other lines of work.

"I think the whole question of the impact of going to the moon is something that will be over rated" Chaika said.

If there is a common feeling among the astronauts, four decades after the Apollo performance, it may be simple disappointment with space exploration - or lack thereof.

"It's all fallen apart," Aldrin says, talking about what might be half a century, the gap between the United States Lunar landings. "We have taken the wrong way."

Chaika agree it is a near-universal refrain astronaut.

They have really never expected that it would take so long. This here will be - 40 years after the first moon landing - still wonder when people come back to the moon. I think they are frustrated.