What inspired the two of you to stay in a wooden mock-up of an Apollo command module 50 years ago when you were 11 and 12 years old respectively?

Bill: Bob and I were Space Age kids. We were both born within a couple of years of the Sputnik satellite launch. As a young kid I remembered grown-ups talking with admiration about John Glenn and Alan Shepard. To us, growing up to be an astronaut held the same allure as being a Major League Baseball player. This was especially true by the time of the Apollo lunar missions.

We read whatever books we could get our hands on about space flights and never missed any TV coverage of them. We even made some short, imaginary pre-Apollo 20 "flights". Bob and his younger brother Todd slept in bunk beds. On a couple of afternoons, we'd kick Todd out and turn his bed area into a spaceship cockpit. I had an uncle who was an amateur ham radio operator and he'd give us his obsolete meters, switches and devices and we'd set these up as our control panel.

I remember one of us (maybe Bob?) in all seriousness making a Mercury sub-orbital flight (which would be about the same duration of the recent Branson/Bezos flights) while the other one (me?) sat across the room being Mission Control. We also simulated a Gemini space mission with Bob and I closely following whatever NASA transcripts and information we had to guide us. These "flights" lasted a few hours and occupied our afternoons.

Then we heard about some kids in another part of the country who stayed 10 days inside an Apollo space capsule mock-up they made and we thought, "We can do that"!

Bob: My recollection is that sometime in the spring or early summer of 1971, Bill had heard (or read) about a group of students in Alaska who had built an Apollo spaceship as a school science project and stayed inside it for 10-days. Bill wanted to do the same and “beat their record” by staying in it for 12 days, with speculation that we might qualify for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Bob: I vividly recall (like so many people alive at the time) watching the Apollo 11 moon landing with my family in July 1969 and being swept up in the imagery and media coverage of it and all of the subsequent lunar missions. I built a store bought model of the Saturn V rocket and played with Mattel's Major Matt Mason toys. My 6th grade final report/graduation presentation was on the Apollo program and space craft which I handed in during the spring of 1971---just prior to hatching our own idea for the Apollo 20 flight!

How did you convince your Dad, Mr. Russ, to build you a spaceship?

Bob: Inspired by Bill’s “Big Idea”, we sketched a quick concept, collected some scrap wood from the nearby woods and “borrowed” my dad’s hand tools to attempt our first “build.” Within a few days, our scarce scrap materials and non-existent funds resulted in a basic framing of a square base and pyramid form. The size and shape of the frame would have required us to sit in the capsule in a reclining position (like the astronauts do at launch) for the entire 12-day flight. This cramped, prone position was a significant problem even for 11 and 12-year-olds.. A bigger problem was that we left my Dad's tools out in the yard!

So my Dad's initial involvement centered around him scolding me for leaving his tools out to "rust away". He did take notice, however, of the crude framework Bill and I had cobbled together and asked what we were up to. I told him about our crazy idea to build a spaceship and stay in it for 12 days and I don't remember him either embracing or dismissing the idea---I just recall him admonishing me about the tools! But at some point later, he asked about our project and made an offer to help--so long as we could get my Mom's permission!

Initially my mother was skeptical: A spaceship in the back yard?? How big would it be? How long would it be there? What happens after “the flight” is over? I did’t have the answers but my Dad was persuasive and gave her some confidence that this could be a worthy and fun summer project… like building a treehouse or a swing set….except it was going to be a spaceship! And my father was not one to play-around and make false promises. If he said something could be done, he made sure to get it done. Although he was a baker by profession, he was quite skilled in many areas of construction. In previous summers, he built a new patio with a brick outdoor grill; installed a concrete retaining wall along our neighbor’s property line; replaced sidewalks; enclosed a porch to become a home office, etc.… This summer, he was going to build a spaceship!

Bill: Looking back, I think it was an ingenious move by Mr. Russ to keep us kids constructively occupied that summer. We had a remarkable relationship with Bob's Dad. He believed that if you talked to kids like they were adults and treated them as such then they would behave more maturely. It worked. I always remember wanting to act more grown-up and more responsibly whenever I was in his presence.

He taught us the importance of doing things the right way the first time---how to make the most out of building materials---how to keep costs down and to put in the time and effort to get a project done. To this day whenever I smell freshly sawed wood it immediately takes me back to the summer of 1971 in the Russ's yard.

Mr. Russ also kept many of the other neighborhood kids busy. If one of our friends came by wanting to play, Mr. Russ would say "Grab a paint brush and make yourself useful. We're building a spaceship today...!"

Bob: I never had the opportunity to discuss this with my dad (he died unexpectedly when I was in college), but later in life I wondered why he latched onto the spaceship project and took it under his wing that summer. My parents had divorced just a year or two before, and he had visitation on certain days and weekends. In addition to that, my brother and I worked in his bakery on Saturdays and during holiday seasons. He was 100% dedicated to those visits, and in the years prior to 1971 he had done various home improvement projects, often with neighbors and kids pitching in.  So, when the spaceship idea popped-up, I believe he saw it as a viable “summer project” that would occupy all of us and keep him ‘present’ on a weekly basis. 

As I mentioned before, moving forward with the spaceship project could have only happened with my Mom also being on board with the idea. With some skepticism and reluctance—but to her credit too, she said “yes.”    Maybe my dad and my mom weren’t ready to make a full break?   At the very least, they were always respectful and supportive of each other’s co-parenting roles.   Having had kids and gone through a divorce myself, I can only imagine the dynamics between my parents that summer.  As kids, we were clue-less to that aspect, as well as how other neighbors and friend’s parents were thinking about this odd project going up in our backyard.

Why did you call it Apollo 20?

Bill: There were originally going to be three more Apollo flights: 18, 19 and 20. They were cancelled for a number of reasons: cost concerns / shifting focus to upcoming space projects and there was even a declining public interest in lunar missions (hard to imagine now). So we chose the name of what would have been the final mission: Apollo 20.

All of the Apollo missions had 3 astronauts. What happened to the third guy on your flight?

Bill: There was a third guy: our late neighbor, Eddie Schrenker. Bob and I delayed Apollo 20's "launch" for as long as we could to accommodate Eddie but he didn't make it back from his family vacation in time.
We loved Eddie, but he was a couple of years younger than us and a lot more restless and boisterous. He would have been the first to admit that he probably wouldn't have lasted the entire 12 days and we would have had to jettison him into space.

Bob: We had told Eddie and his family that we'd wait for him but as the afternoon progressed towards evening Eddie didn't materialize. So with my parents' permission, we "lifted-off" without him. Once we were "in orbit" we agreed that he couldn't realistically just hop aboard mid-flight (and Bill and I were sticklers for pretend "realism").

I don't recall Eddie being very upset or having a meltdown about missing the flight. While we were all good friends, Eddie was more into sports and other interests besides space flight and there is a big age difference between 10 and 11 and 12 year olds. Whatever the circumstances, things happen for a reason. Having all three of us in the spaceship for 12 days would have increased the odds for a "mission failure"!

What recollections do you have of that summer of 1971 in Pittsburgh?

Bill: I have very fond memories of that summer. Bob and I were lucky kids---lucky to have had great parents, families, neighbors and friends. Lucky to be living in a little ideal area of Sheraden near where the City of Pittsburgh borders the boroughs of Ingram and Crafton. An area sometimes referred to on maps as City Acres. My Dad was a car mechanic at Broadway Sales and Service in Mckee's Rocks and my Mom retired from her US Steel office job after they were married. The Pittsburgh steel industry had not yet tanked in 1971 (that would happen soon enough in the same decade) so my Dad's blue collar lower middle class earnings were (for now) enough for our family to live comfortably on.

Bill: Pittsburgh was still going through it's Renaissance period. The Bridge to Nowhere (the Ft. Duquesne Bridge) was finally going somewhere. Three Rivers Stadium was barely a year old. The Pirates were hot in their pennant race enroute to their 1971 World Series Championship.

Bill: The #1 song on KQV the week of the Apollo 20 flight was "Smiling Faces" by the Undisputed Truth. Other songs on KQV's hitlist (and for which I had purchased 45’s) were "Maggie Mae" by Rod Stewart, "It Don't Come Easy" by Ringo Starr and "Chicago" by Graham Nash. Bob and others our age were starting to listen to album rock on WZUM, an FM station in Carnegie. On WZUM, you'd hear many cuts from albums released that year like "The Yes Album", "Who's next", "the Allman Bros Live at Filmore East", "Carole King's "Tapestry", "CSN&Y's Four Way Street" and "Sticky Fingers" by the Stones.

Bill: On Pittsburgh TV there were local shows like WIIC's Studio Wrestling with ringside announcer Bill Cardille who'd also host "Chiller Theater" later that Saturday night. By age 12, I was allowed to stay up and watch "Chiller Theater". Prior to that, my sister and I could only watch it when we stayed overnight at our older cousins' Eddie and Linda's house. (Our own parents forbade our "Chiller Theater" viewing as they knew it gave us nightmares.)

Little League Baseball, organ lessons, drawing comix, playing frisbee and street hockey kept me occupied when we weren't working on the spaceship. I made a little spending money by mowing lawns and washing cars. When my Dad had his yearly two week vacation at the beginning of August, all four of us (he, my Mom, my sister and I) would drive up to the Cook's Forest area in his 1963 Plymouth Belvedere to attend the company's picnic where his boss had a farm. Afterwards we'd spend a day at Lake Erie. That year we extended the road trip to Detroit to visit relatives on my Mom's side of the family. Along the way we'd stay at inexpensive roadside motels (the ones that had the 25 cent "Magic Fingers" massagers attached to the bed). While on that trip I'd watch on the motel rooms' black and white TV sets live feeds from the Apollo 15 lunar mission which made me eager to return to Pittsburgh and start our own Apollo 20 flight!

Bob: Much of what Bill said is similar to my own recollections of that year. My family was also middle class but so was the rest of the neighborhood. Bill and I were hanging out more and besides the Apollo 20 project we were listening to music quite a bit and taking music lessons. I was learning rudimentary drumming with the goal of "earning" a drum set from my parents if I stuck to it.

Bob: In my 6th grade class, I was the only boy with shoulder length "hippie" hair but my parents supported it. My little league baseball coach (an ex-military man) hated my long hair and nick-named me "Shirley". I refused to cut it that summer partly to spite him but to prove the point that even with long hair, I could play second base well. I made the all-star team and we went to the playoffs and he didn't make good on his threat to bench me for not cutting my hair.

Two things stick out in my mind about that summer: First, My Dad and I realizing mid-way through the spaceship construction that we needed to extend it another four feet to house two bunk beds, lighting, and a rudimentary toilet. This required lobbying for and obtaining updated permission from my Mom but thankfully she reluctantly agreed.

Secondly, as our launch date approached I was unsure that we'd finish the spaceship on time. Bill and Eddie were on vacation, I was nervous about starting at a new school right after Labor Day. A lot was happening and I approached my Dad about us waiting until next summer to do the flight. His quick response was "No friggin way!!" "We're sticking to the plan!" He knew that if it didn't happen that summer, Bill and I would probably lose interest and be on to something else by the next one. So we were on like Donkey Kong... (...uh....No, video games weren't invented yet in 1971..!)

What do you remember about the day that Apollo 20 "lifted off"and you began your 12 day mission?

Bill: There was a lot of running around between Bob's and my house that warm, sunny August day. The cicadas were singing their late summer songs. We packed some clothes, toiletries, etc., that we'd need in "space." It probably wasn't until our August 16th launch day that our friends/family knew for sure that we were going to go through with the flight. We got into our "spacesuit/uniforms" and waited as long as we could for Eddie Schrenker to appear. We also waited because we thought TV news crews might show up to witness the "launch." (--That would happen later in the flight.)

My sister Lynn recently reminded me that she and a number of the neighborhood kids stood on the neighbor's wall facing the spaceship to watch the launch. (Maybe they thought that the craft was really going to blast off!) We entered Apollo 20 in the late afternoon and began our extended countdown. At T-minus 1 we flipped the switch that turned on the vacuum cleaner engine that Mr. Russ had mounted onto the back of the spaceship and we were on our way!

Who was your "Mission Control"?

Bill: Bob's late younger brother, Todd, who we miss dearly, was our main "Mission Control" person. When he wasn't available, my sister Lynn took over. Mr. Russ had installed a working intercom system into Apollo 20 with two lines. One went up into a windowed office in the house and the other into Mrs. Russ bedroom. (She'd take over after Todd went to sleep in case we had an emergency in the middle of the night.) When the weather was nice, we'd communicate with Todd on the outside patio with walkie talkies.

Bob: I recall one scripted moment where we were reciting an Apollo transcript to make our lunar landing "real". But my brother Todd (as Mission Control) was too young to follow the transcript so we told him to just say "Roger!" or "Copy that!" after everything we said in the walkie-talkies. After saying "Roger!" dozens of times we could hear the boredom and frustration in his voice and then our Mission Control just gave up and went AWOL forcing us to land on the moon by the seat of our pants!

Were your other parents involved in "the mission"?

Bill: Both of our Mom's made our "spacesuits/uniforms". They were simply white sweatshirts and white pants with white socks, etc. (The only white pants that my Mom could find for me had large red and blue pockets on them.) Bob's Mom and my Mom lovingly ironed American Flag patches onto the upper arms of our sweatshirts. I recently found mine amongst belongings in my late parents' house. We had hoped to have authentic space helmets and lunar surface space suits but there was a limit to what a couple of pre-teens could afford to create.

Bill: Our Mom's would alternate the nights when they brought us dinner. During weekdays, my Mom would bring us box lunches since Mrs. Russ had a day job. She made sure to always include "Space Food Sticks". My Dad filmed us before, during and after the Flight of Apollo 20 with his 8mm home movie camera....the footage of which you can see on this website.

Bob: My Dad told me sometime after the flight that one night he was out late drinking with some buddies and they entertained the idea of sneaking up on us to bang on the spaceship and subject us to a meteor storm! But he called it off when he realized that it might scare his young astronauts enough to jump out of Apollo 20 and void the 12 day record attempt (...and not to mention that my Mom wouldn't have taken too kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night over that prank)!

Midway through the flight, two local TV stations--KDKA channel 2 and WIIC (now WPXI) channel 11 included you in their newscasts.

Bill: I'm not sure who contacted the TV stations...probably our parents and/or our neighbors. The Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were on strike that summer, which was unfortunate as I'm sure there would have been some mention about the Flight of Apollo 20 in their newspapers.

Maryanne McSherry (Sp.?) and a 16mm Camera man (who may have been her husband or brother??--as I recently looked up and saw a 2015 obituary for a McSherry who was a retired KDKA & WQED Cameraman) came to film us one afternoon. I haven’t found any online information about Maryanne--perhaps she married and wasn't at KDKA long? She interviewed us both.. Bob and I had a small, battery powered reel to reel tape recorder which we left running for the entire interview. We have a crude quality copy of that which we may eventually put up on this website.

Bill: She also interviewed Bob's Dad, my Mom and Eddie Schrenker. I'm not certain if she spoke to my sister or any of the other neighborhood kids? Her Apollo 20 story/coverage was aired on KDKA's 6PM newscast. Unfortunately, no known audio or video of that newscast exists. I have a recollection that Bob and I did not see that broadcast and that someone (our families or neighbors?) lent us a small tv set (which weren't extremely common in 1971) for WIIC's 11pm newscast because they realized that "the Space Kids need to see themselves on TV!"

Not to be outdone by KDKA, Channel 11 WIIC (which is now WPXI) sent over their news reporter, the late Tom Finn, to cover that day's hot local news story. Arriving as it was getting dark, Tom's crew set up a couple of bright lights which drew in more of the neighborhood folks.

Our neighbor, Mrs. Guertner, who owned the Tower of Pizza restaurant in Crafton, wasn't home when KDKA came by that afternoon but she made sure not to miss out on some free publicity when WIIC showed up! Tom Finn added her to the news story:

"....Mary Jane Guertner, who runs the Tower of Pizza in Crafton, shows up regularly to bring the boys pizza and hoagies..."

The background footage to this reporting showed Mrs. Guertner handing us a food delivery through the spacecraft window. Someone suggested that she remove her glasses for the scene and it resulted in her having trouble finding the window opening. Bob rescued the scene by reaching out and grabbing the delivery box from her. Bob & I privately complained to each other that Mrs. Guertner only showed up with pizza when the news crew was there but to her credit she did come back another time during the flight to give us pizza when no cameras were present.

Bob: We didn't complain much, Mrs. Guertner's pizza was good! 

Bill: Mr. Russ was interviewed and said that spaceship building was, "a far cry from baking"!
Bob and I howled when we saw that his next door neighbor, little Mary Ellen DeGregory was interviewed and whiningly declared that "staying 12 days in a space capsule is like staying in a Holiday Inn for them!" The late news anchor Ray Tannehill concluded the news story by saying,

"....the young astronauts must return in 12 days because they have classes to start in the fall semester. They're both in the 8th grade..."
 (Bob was actually starting 7th grade and Bill 8th grade but we forgave Channel 11 for that small error.)

We do have an audio recording of that 11PM newscast but it sounds like one of Thomas Edison's early wax cylinders so we haven't posted it online yet. Happily, my Dad's boss at the car dealership was able toget us some of the 16mm B-Roll footage footage shot by WIIC's cameraman. It's mostly silent but it does include a short snippet with audio of Tom Finn interviewing Bob and me. We've included it on this website. 

Bob: There was a 2nd reel of film that we unfortunately were never given by WIIC which would have contained my Dad's interview as well as a couple of the neighbors. That always disappointed me but at least we have something...which is amazing!

Bill:  We'd love to know if any more footage exists in either WIIC's or KDKA's archives? (Highly doubtful but you never know...can an intern with some free time at either of those TV stations go looking for us?)

Besides the news crews, did you have any special guests show up during your flight?

Bill: My late and wonderful, loving Uncle Bob from Portland, Oregon happened to be in town to visit my Dad (his brother) and family. I was shocked when he came knocking on
the spaceship window! In the photos we have of his visit, Bob and I joke that he looks like a NASA representative sent to advise us!

Uncle Bob holds the distinction of having come the furthest to see us during our flight. He was always very supportive of anything that my sister Lynn and I were interested in and for a few years afterwards he sent me a lot of books/materials about space missions. I felt really guilty later on when I didn't pursue an astronaut's career!

Bob: After we were on the news, people from outside the neighborhood would pull up their cars and walk over and talk to us. None of this caused any concern with our parents or neighbors. They were just people curious to know more about what we were doing.

Did you see any UFO's or meet any aliens on the way to and from the moon?

Bill: One afternoon a boy with a large basket of fruits and vegetables appeared on the patio and knocked on the backdoor of Bob's house. He was the son of a huckster who drove his truck through the neighborhood each summer selling farm produce. (His Dad probably told him to "go around the back and see if anybody's home and sell them some fruit" while he waited in the truck.) Bob leaned out the spaceship window and asked "Can I help you with something?" and the boy said with a heavy farm accent, "Do you want any corn, string beans or cabbage?" Bob and I both laughed--not so much at the boy's accent but that he had absolutely no reaction to a spaceship being in the backyard!

Bob: It's funny but when you Google "Apollo 20" today you get bizarre conspiracy theories that Apollo 20 was a secret mission that discovered aliens on the moon! Bill and I were dedicated to flying a "realistic" Apollo mission---We had collected from the library copies of flight plans/schedules/communications transcripts that we followed for our own "lift-off", "trans lunar injection burn". etc. We never entertained notions of finding aliens!

Did you two get along during the 12 days?

Bill: Remarkably well. Bob and I were quite serious about doing this "mission" so I think we tried extra hard not to agitate each other. We had brought with us board games and books to keep us occupied when we weren't acting out/following mission procedures. Plus, all of our neighborhood friends would come by to hang out/talk to us through the windows. With them, we made several funny audio tapes with the little reel to reel tape recorder that I mentioned before. Afternoons tended to drag on---it was August and even though Bob's Dad had installed some vents in the spaceship there was no air conditioning so the "Boring Hour(s)" from 1PM to 4PM weren't so comfy.

Bob: I agree, I don't remember any "dust-ups". I recall the August mid-day heat but besides following our "flight plans" we had games, radios, diaries, books and lots of visitors coming by. So we got into a rhythm and as the days progressed we became more excited about completing the mission.

What was it like to walk on the lunar surface?

Bill: We didn't. While we entertained doing a simulated moon walk or a moon ride (the Apollo 15 flight, on which our own flight was based, was the first mission with the lunar rover), we realized that exiting our wooden spaceship would void the 12 day record of staying inside that we were trying to set.

You "splashed down" near Hawaii?

Bill: That's what the “flight mission” stipulated! The cute surprise awaiting us when we "landed" was the sight of my sister Lynn, Eddie Schrenker's sister Mary Beth and Bob's next door neighbor Mary Ellen DeGregory dressed in full Hawaiian regalia---complete with flowers and grass skirts!

Bob: I believe that our next door neighbor's’, the DeGregorys, had made a recent trip to Hawaii and the wardrobe was on hand. That may have even influenced the mission ending near Hawaii!

Bill: Our parents and several of our extended family members and neighbors threw us a "Welcome Back to Earth" party on the patio that spilled over into Bob's neighbor's yard.
My Dad filmed quite a bit of this "splashdown party" with his 8mm film camera and you can see that footage on this website.

Bill: And Mr. Russ, ---not to have his baker work be outshone by his carpenter side--made us a spaceship cake complete with an Apollo 20 capsule and two astronauts!

How was life back on "Earth"?

Bill: The flight ended on Saturday, August 28th. (Oddly enough, 2021 has the same calendar as 1971.) As Ray Tannehill said, we had classes to start soon afterwards. I excitedly thought that I'd be a real popular kid when I returned to school. But kids are merciless and they were waiting for me. My nickname that following school year was "Billy Blast-off"!

Bob: True, there was some backlash at school...mostly from kids who didn't know us well. I was somewhat insulated since I was starting 7th grade in a new school and few students knew me nor did they seem to put two and two together. In our neighborhood, most of the kids were supportive and enjoyed being a part of building it or playing in it in the months after the flight.

By the following summer that spaceship's plywood skin started delaminating so my Uncle Bill Numer, a roofer and skilled sheet metal worker "acquired" some aluminum sheets and wrapped the entire spaceship in it. It looked amazing---all shiny and reflective! But then it became a rock throwing target for some kids on their walking home from school. You'd hear a loud clang! and we'd yell or chase after them---which is the reaction they wanted. But hey, jealousy will get you nowhere...! Ha!

50 years later, you're still best friends. What were your thoughts leading up to the 50th anniversary?

Bill: How great it all was and is. I greatly miss our parents and other friends/family members who have passed away and would have loved to have been celebrating this with us. A particularly tough loss was when Bob's brother Todd--our “Mission Control man”--passed away suddenly last summer. He would have been highly entertained by this anniversary and all of our reminiscing. I do get a big kick out of telling folks that have no knowledge of the Flight of Apollo 20 that, "..it's the 50th anniversary of the spaceship..!" and watching their reaction.

Bob: Bill and I have been life-long friends...which is unique and rare. The spaceship was the first of many cockamany stunts, and "why not, let's do it" adventures together. We started our first rock band at ages 13 & 14 and our parents would help load up our equipment and take us to our first shows.

The lessons that my dad taught me building the spaceship continued to influence me through my life. Whether if was doing home improvement projects, becoming an architect, or having to become an ad-hoc contractor and physically building my first projects during and just after college----or even renovating my house now---all goes back to the DYI, "Jack of all trades", "make it happen" spirit that my father exhibited that summer in 1971. It was and is a life-long gift.

Do you have any more space flights planned?

Bill: I really wanted to do a new mission for the 50th anniversary but Bob didn't seem to share the same enthusiasm. I even entertained the idea of a Steam Punk moon mission---building a spaceship in the look and spirit of Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" and seeing if any PGH local artists (Trundle Manor and/or Randyland folks, are you listening?) would be interested in participating.
But then I thought it might be a little weird for 60 plus year old white guys to be staying in an imaginary space capsule...why not instead try to provide an opportunity for some young kids nowadays who are interested in science/space exploration?

Bill: Of particular motivation for me is to give minority kids and/or those from underserved communities the same fun experience that Bob and I had. Even at the age I was when we did our flight I was aware of the backlash about the amount of money being spent on the U.S. Space program compared to funding for social needs. I didn't hear "Whitey's on the Moon" by Gil Scott-Heron until I was an adult but I understood it's sentiment in my teenage years. There's a moment in the current concert film "Summer of Soul" which takes place at the same time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969. In that segment, black folks are interviewed about the moon landing's significance and their responses are telling.

Bob and I, unfortunately, are not wealthy enough to outright fund a new Apollo 20 flight for young kids but I could get behind "passing the baton" on to the new generation in whatever ways I can help.
There are many Pittsburgh institutions/companies involved in science who I believe could be persuaded to get behind and sponsor such a project. Bob and I attended the Apollo missions exhibit, Destination Moon at the Heinz History Center, and I was surprised at how many Pittsburgh companies/institutions/individuals were involved with inventing and manufacturing key components of the Apollo space program.

A little support from any of the aforementioned folks would go a long way to make a simulated space flight for kids...like Apollo 21?....and 22?...and 23...? possible.
It doesn't take much. Look what some kids and a local baker did with some spare wood, paint and car parts 50 years ago....!

Bob: I'm just too busy now to entertain another "mission:" Part of me would like the challenge of building a new-age, totally "off-the-grid" spaceship with solar panels and sustainable, bio-degradable materials. The first Earth Day was in 1970, the year before our mission and many of the issues then like over-population, pollution, consumption of resources--are even more dire fifty years later. We could make a statement...!

The desire to pay-it-forward is compelling to me. I never built a spaceship for my kids but I tried to support their dreams---their versions of a spaceship--and teach them how to accomplish their goals. Part of me believes that you can't capture lightning in a bottle. What happened back in 1971 can't be duplicated or recreated so just let it be...and follow a new path. Now I design multi-million-dollar spaceships (buildings) for my clients that do amazing things---so that itch has been scratched for the past fifty years.

That said, it is amazing  to see 50 years later the technology that NASA and SpaceX are producing and the blizzard of new activity by the international community in space explorations and exploitation. The shuttle and international space station were and are amazing. The various scientific probes, landers and rovers being sent across the solar system are sending back incredible data and images. Maybe we'll go back to the moon soon? Maybe to Mars....if SpaceX can pull it off? Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson all say they recall watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step out onto the moon as kids and were inspired by it...just as Bill and I were...BUT...Bill and I got to build our spaceship first! So we own that! Hahaa!

Even though we never physically left my backyard, our imaginations took us far and wide. It inspired our families and our neighborhood to make something amazing happen in 1971 that Bill and I really enjoyed and recognize was very, very special. To Bill, my Dad, our friends and our families...I am forever thankful and grateful. It was a fun ride!