No Dream Is Too High

• CHAPTER SIX • MAINTAIN YOUR SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE.

You don’t have to go to the Moon to maintain a sense of wonder in life. You just need to foster an adventurous spirit. I find tremendous pleasure in the “little things,” everywhere I go.

For instance, I prefer to sit by the window in an airplane so I can look out at the marvelous sights. To this day, I am still thrilled when I fly into New York City, and the plane circles around the Statue of Liberty before coming in for a landing. Powerful emotions well within me as I look out the plane’s window at Lady Liberty, and feelings of pride and patriotism surge through me.

I enjoy flying across the United States. In my mid-80s, after orbiting the Earth in Gemini 12 and walking on the Moon during Apollo 11, I’m still amazed as I gaze out a plane window, observing the clouds and the astounding terrain of Earth below as we fly. How many years did it take for the Colorado River to carve out the Grand Canyon? I ponder as I fly over Arizona. What cataclysmic events took place that heaved the majestic Rocky Mountains into place? I’m a scientist and an astronaut, but looking down at creation from an altitude of 37,000 feet, as I zoom across the country in a metal tube, I have to wonder, How did it all happen? It couldn’t have been simply a cosmic accident.

I’m even more fascinated with watching Christina and her husband Alex’s baby Logan developing. I missed those years with my own kids because I was so consumed with work. But now, I observe with awe how little baby Logan responds to various stimuli, amazed at how the neurotransmitters in his young brain are snapping to attention and discovering the world around him. Each day is a new adventure for him, as he looks at life with awe. I hope to always maintain that same sort of childlike fascination with life here on Earth as well as on other celestial bodies.

Although I’ve had some unique experiences in space, I still have an adventurous spirit here on Earth. I’ve traveled “up” to the North Pole on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker ship with former television newscaster Hugh Downs and his wife, Ruth. Hugh had a film crew for the ABC television program 20/20 documenting our trip.

It was freezing cold when we reached the North Pole, but in my mind, I could almost hear Karen Carpenter, one of my all-time favorite female artists, singing, “I’m on top of the world looking down on creation.” We shuttled across the frozen expanse by helicopter to a location where we were served a meal on the ice. Then some of the passengers set up a makeshift baseball diamond on the ice and we played softball at the North Pole. What an experience! A couple of the younger passengers even found a spot where the ice had cleared and they dared to jump in the water for a quick swim—very quick! But not me. I’m adventurous, but I’m not crazy!

I’ve traveled 250,000 miles up to the Moon, and up to the North Pole, and I’ve also plunged down more than 2.4 miles, all the way to the ocean floor in a tiny, yellow, French submersible to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The company that sponsored the trip hoped to raise a section of the ship’s hull and conduct an unprecedented exploration of the bow. Unlike the Beatles’ hypothetical yellow submarine, the submersible was spherical in shape, with thick, strong glass portholes on each side that allowed the two French operators and me to look out.

This was not a luxury liner like the Titanic. Quite the contrary, the sub was a claustrophobic person’s worst nightmare, with the pilot sitting so he could work the control board as the copilot and I lay flat on our stomachs on the floor. There was no restroom aboard.

The operators spoke only a bit of broken English, so communication was difficult. I had taken French in high school, and with a lot of pointing at the menu, I might have been able to order something to eat in a Parisian restaurant, but that was the extent of my foreign language knowledge. I did my best to understand the Frenchmens’ instructions and conversations.

It took an hour and a half for us to descend through the lonely darkness, until we finally caught sight of the sunken ship, eerily resting on the ocean floor. It was total blackness all around, the only illumination cast from the submersible’s lights. I grabbed a camera and started shooting pictures of the ship, festooned with rusting metal that looked like gingerbread, as I imagined passengers once standing on the bow, looking over the railing made famous by James Cameron’s movie, now covered with a surreal white algae and other organisms.

The French operators worked for nearly nine hours attempting to strategically place lift bags that they hoped would cause a portion of the Titanic’s hull to float. But as the pilot attempted to raise the hull, a cable snapped, and another would not release, dooming the mission. The Titanic yawned in resistance and settled back to sleep, as though it knew our efforts had been scrubbed as a failure. But it was not a failure for me. I had traveled to the ocean floor, to one of the sea’s most guarded secrets.

IN 2010, AT 80 YEARS OF AGE, I hitched a ride on a gigantic whale shark while scuba diving in the Galápagos Islands.

I’ve never really had a hobby, but when I am not working, scuba diving is one of my favorite things to do, and under the sea is my favorite place to be—on this planet. To this day, I enjoy scuba diving excursions at least four or five times each year, to various locations around the world.

Besides the gorgeous sights waiting to be discovered, I love the quietness and the solitude of being under the sea. It is a part of life that cannot be described by mere words and can only be truly experienced by going underwater. No cell phones are ringing; I have no emails to answer, although with wristwatches now boasting more computer power than Neil and I had in the lunar module when we landed on the Moon, I can see being online underwater as a possibility. For now, though, I love the natural peace that I find deep below the surface. To me, scuba diving is both relaxing and energizing at the same time—relaxing because it is so peaceful; energizing because the unparalleled sights inexorably call for exploration.

To help celebrate my 80th birthday, my son Andy took me on a special trip to the Galápagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles west of Ecuador. The waters off the Galápagos Islands, two uninhabitable islands known as Darwin and Wolf, feature some of the most picturesque and fascinating scuba diving opportunities in the world. It is also some of the most challenging diving in the world. The strong, cold currents do not make for easy diving, nor do the large numbers of dangerous sharks, but the waters around the islands are teeming with spectacular sea life. They are home to some of the largest whale sharks on the planet, some as large as 40 feet long, 18 feet high, and weighing in at more than 20 tons. To put that in perspective, imagine swimming up to a fish as large as a Greyhound bus.

Although whale sharks are enormous, they are relatively docile. They don’t normally attack humans, because their favorite food is plankton. A whale shark has a flat-looking head and blunt snout, with massive, oval-shaped jaws that the fish opens frequently as it moves rapidly through the water, filtering everything in its path, discarding anything that isn’t plankton.

Even though there is little danger of getting eaten by a whale shark, they are still dangerous to humans because their sleek bodies move so rapidly through the water, and a human is so small comparatively that the fish might smash right into a diver without missing a stroke or even noticing. If you get in the whale shark’s way, you could get hurt, because the fish would flick you off like a gnat.

The whale sharks are so huge, they can be spotted from the air by a small plane or a helicopter pilot scouting the seas, who then radios the information to a boat captain, who points the craft in that direction.

Prior to entering the water, Ricardo, our indigenous dive master, cautioned us, “Do not touch the sea life, especially the whale sharks.”

Andy gave me a look, as if to say, “And that means you, Dad.” Of course, he knew that if I came anywhere near a whale shark, all bets were off, because I’d want to get as close as possible.

We paddled away from the boat in small Pangas, life rafts a lot like the more common inflatable rubber Zodiacs. Andy carried the underwater camera as he and Ricardo and I plunged into the water. The moment my body was submerged, I was in an entirely new world. The sunshine filtered through the turquoise blue Pacific waters above me, providing plenty of light by which to see. Almost immediately, I spotted a sharp-toothed moray eel easing out of a coral cave below me. I noticed a few small sharks and some large turtles, as well as a spectacular array of brightly colored tropical fish.

We had been underwater for a while, and I was about 75 feet below the surface when I saw a whale shark heading in our direction at an angle, and even from a distance, I could tell that the fish was enormous! Remember Jonah and the whale? This guy’s mouth could have swallowed Jonah and a whole lot more!

I swam right at him, looking him in the eye the whole time. His huge mouth was closed, but I was still careful not to get in his way.

The whale shark was moving fast, so I didn’t have much time to figure out my rendezvous plans, but with a bit of experience in that area, I quickly calculated the direction I needed to swim if I hoped to intersect with the fish. The dive master saw me and began waving frantically, trying to keep me from approaching the whale shark, but I started swimming on a trajectory in which I felt sure I could catch the huge creature’s dorsal fin. Andy saw me, too, and must have instinctively figured out what I planned to do, because he swam as fast as he could with the camera ready.

I intercepted the whale shark, looked the fish in the eye, and then drifted back and above him, to where I knew the whale shark’s dorsal fin would be coming by me in a moment. Sure enough, the whale shark passed below me, so I swam hard toward him, grabbed onto the dorsal fin, and held on for dear life! The whale shark didn’t pay much attention to me. Quite the contrary, he didn’t slow down a bit, swiftly carrying me along with him through the sea.

I could hear Ricardo sounding his alarm rattle, warning me away from the whale shark. I knew Ricardo would not be happy with me, but I continued to hang on. Worse yet, I knew my air supply was running low. I checked my air gauge as the whale shark continued swimming, with Ricardo and Andy chasing us from behind, Ricardo frantically urging me to let go and Andy hurrying to get as many photos as he could. By the time I let go of the whale shark’s fin, I was almost completely out of air. I had to “buddy breathe” with Ricardo, taking a gulp of his air, and holding my breath as long as I could before taking another, sharing his air tank to get back to the surface. Ricardo was furious, though wonderfully gracious, especially considering that I had totally disobeyed his instructions. But how often does an 80-year-old man get to celebrate his birthday by hitching a ride on a whale shark?

Andy got some fantastic photos of me riding the whale shark, and I’m almost as proud of those shots as I am of the ones Neil Armstrong took of me on the Moon. When I met Brad Norman, an Australian scientist who is one of the world’s foremost experts on whale sharks, I was reluctant to show him one of my pictures because I thought he might be upset at me for getting so close to the huge endangered fish.

Brad loved the photo! “We don’t encourage the public to get near a whale shark, but I do it all the time, Buzz,” he said, “because I have to tag them.” Brad uses NASA star-tracking technology to track the whale sharks around the world, and to study their movements. I was especially honored when Brad named a whale shark “Apollo” in my honor. I have enjoyed making the world more aware of this beautiful fish. When I tell this story in schools, I’m careful to include the caution, “Kids, don’t try this at home!”

ALWAYS KEEP SOME NEW, exciting adventure on your “bucket list,” that list of things you want to do before you die. Maybe you’ll want to swim with the sharks, too. One thing I still want to do is to go to the South Pole. I’ve been to the North Pole, but never to Antarctica. Another experience I still want to have is an underwater diving adventure with some crocodiles.

Really!

My son Andy has embraced my penchant for exploration and adventure. He is brilliant, much smarter than I am, and has a PhD from UCLA. He wrote the foreword to my book Mission to Mars. As a father, I could not possibly be more proud of him. In recent years, Andy has become more involved in trying to help bring my scientific concepts to fruition. It means a great deal to me that Andy has chosen to carry on my work. Although I am proud of all my children, Andy is more similar to me, in that he is always up for almost anything I’m willing to try.

For instance, not long ago, Andy found a place in Africa where we could do a diving expedition with crocodiles. We seriously considered doing it, but after thinking through the risks, we decided to put that trip on hold.

I still have an adventurous spirit, but at my age, sometimes I also have to be sensible. After all, crocodiles are pretty fast, and I wondered if I could outrun a croc on land. I felt confident that I could probably outswim a crocodile in my scuba gear underwater, but if it caught up to me and I had to make a hasty exit on land, wearing flippers on my feet, a wet suit, and a heavy air tank on my back, I’m not so sure I could outdistance it. I decided I didn’t want to lose a hand! As a result, Andy and I chose to forgo that trip—for now—but we haven’t given up on it.

Really!

You don’t have to do some of the more outlandish things that I do to enjoy an adventurous spirit, but you do need to stay active. Ideally, you should find some activity that you can do year-round. Staying active and maintaining a sense of adventure are important for anyone, but are especially essential as we get a little older.

People often ask me how I stay in such good physical shape. “I walk fast through airports,” I tell them. When it comes to exercise, I subscribe to the Neil Armstrong philosophy. At least half seriously, Neil always said, “God only gave me so many heartbeats; I’m not going to waste any of them on physical exercise!”

Truth is, I keep moving and I stay active, and until I take my last breath, I want to maintain my fascination with life and my sense of adventure. With that attitude, I might just live forever!