The Eric Metaxas Show - Charlie Duke (Encore Continued)

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

A special Socrates in the City with former astronaut Charles Duke 

Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Would you consider yourself smart, insightful, precocious, astute, clever, wise beyond your years, and good at checking a cesareth for synonyms? Well, then you've come to the right place. Here now is the handsome, attractive, striking, gorgeous, and quite frankly, breathtaking, Eric Mattexas! So you're in this thing, and you have to do a couple of orbits to make your... approach and you almost had to abort that.

Mattingly had a problem. One hour before we were to land on the moon, we were on the backside of the moon and he had to change his orbit from a 60 mile on the backside to 60 miles on the front side and it required a major engine ignition. Well, there was something wrong with the engine, it was shaking the spacecraft to pieces. So he reported that to John, and John said, don't burn. And when he said that, that means we weren't going to get the land on the next hour. And I don't know whether your heart can sink to the bottom of your boots and zero gravity, but ours did. And, oh, God, we come this, you know, there's our landing site, eight miles down there, and they're about ready to tell us to come home. So,

So mission control came up to speed and they started working, the problem. And they came up with an answer on the second revolution around, and the next revolution, the third orbit, we were cleared to land. Manningly made the burn. It all went well. And so now we're cleared to land, and so we started our descent. and it was the last opportunity we had to land because the moon was slowly rotating underneath us,

and we had to fly cross-range to get back to our landing site. And that was the last rev that we could do that with the fuel we had on board. So mission control saved the day. There's a good movie out, a documentary called Mission Control, The Unsung Heroes of Apollo. And it's fantastic. It covers all of the moments that mission control save the day on Apollo.

And so we landed and maddingly orbited, and we stayed three days exploring the moon with a little car. We had a little rover. Now, this is so incredible to me. You got to drive before we even get to that. So you land. You were the 10th man to walk on the moon. John Young was the 9th. So he gets out, you get out.

What is that moment like? Because most of us may not get to experience this. You are stepping down a ladder to stand on the moon. Fortunately, the lunar module Paula didn't have to move. make a big speech. The commander did the... That's you. Huh?

That's you. You're the pilot. You didn't have to make a speech. I don't have to make a speech. That's what you're worried about? No, I wasn't. I didn't have to do that. So I was just excited

and I'm coming down the ladder and I jumped off the moon and bounced around on the moon and this thought kept coming. I'm on the moon. Wow, golly. That is. And, you know, I was just emotionally. But what's incredible is you really were.

Yeah. I mean, that's got to be impossible to communicate the idea that you were standing on the moon. You dreamt about this and prepared for this, and now you're there. Yeah. Well, it was emotional high, if you will.

Your emotions run from all wonder, excitement, adventure. All of those things rolled into one. And I used to say it's like a five-year-old on Christmas morning. The best Christmas you ever had is the feeling, the emotion and the enthusiasm and the excitement you had. But you couldn't stand there and, you know, rub your visor and say, look at this and look at that. You had a checklist and you had to stay on time.

Yeah. So it was procedure, procedure, procedure, procedure. Okay, so you had, so you land, and now you've got a ton of work to do. And I didn't realize this, that Armstrong and Aldrin were there 24 hours. You're there three days, and you've got rock collecting to do. And it seems crazy to me that you have, what's it called? It's a vehicle, like a dune buggy that unfolds from the side of the lunar module, and you get to jump in the sucker and do donuts on the surface of the moon.

Well, I didn't drive. I was the navigator. John Young was the driver. And it was a great vehicle. It revolutionized lunar exploration because it would go 100 kilometers, but you couldn't drive it that far because if you broke down, you had to walk back. So our limit was about four miles. That's still pretty far.

Yeah, it is. We practiced, though. And we figured we could walk back four miles. In those moon boots. you're probably what 150, 180 pounds and so you... No, on the moon I weighed 363 pounds

with all my... Well, with the gear but one-sixth of that, obviously, so you feel like you weigh 60 pounds. 60 pounds, right. So the moon, you get used to the moon, you know how you can get to practice so much, you know how to make the suit work for you. And you couldn't

bend over it to waist, you couldn't bend a knee like this, like we're sitting here, it's impossible. So you jump into the car and you're like this. And then you pull over a seatbelt and you crank yourself in and it pulls you back into the seat. So now you're looking forward. And you have a foot well for your feet.

And it was fun. And so you got to drive this thing for, well, you got to ride in this thing four kilometers from the lunar module. Yeah. And you are collecting rocks and stuff. You and I were talking about this, the geology. You, what did you, what was your assignment? I mean, the fact is you're up there and you've got a lot of work to do.

You're not just there to land. That's been done before. You're there now to collect samples. and we had a traverse that were planned by a team of geologists and physicists and all. And they gave you, at this stop, you had this experiment to do and that experiment to do and collect this kind of rock and that kind of rock. And take pictures and 500 millimeter lens and all of these kind of things. And so they kept you on target and on time.

And so when you got to a spot, you had your checklist, and you just started going through the checklist. But they had a TV camera on the car, and we just turned it on, pointed the antenna at the earth, and then this engineering mission control controlled the camera. And so as they pan it around, they rarely were looking at us. They were looking at the terrain. And the geologist, and we call it the back room, they would see an object. like, hey, look at that rock over there. Guys, go pick up that rock.

And so they were telling us which rocks to pick up. And so it was a team effort. And we were stayed on schedule. Mission Control kept us on, you know, 40 minutes at this station. Then we'd get jumped back in the car and drive to the next station. My Pillow is excited to announce that they're having the first ever mega sale on overstock clearance and brand new products. For example, you can save over 50% on this season's flammons. Sheets. The queen size is only 59.98, and King is only 69.998. They sell out fast every year,

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You must use my discount code Eric. Call them at 800 2468-751 and use discount code Eric or order online at balance to nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping balance of nature.com. It was exciting. If you listen to the transcript, the liftoff and the bang bang bang it started just like that and bang you're off in a in a big blast of flags waving and you're looking out the you're just going straight up and and it was it was bang bang bang bang it was controlling it itself but it was very it's like flying a fighter full eloron bang you go like this and it go back the other way and so it was doing that

and you listen to the transcript, what a ride, what a ride this is. And you just look out the window when you get a chance and you see the moon receding and you're just climbing out. And it was seven minutes and

15 seconds, I think. Straight up. No, you go, you start straight up, but then you pitch over. If you go straight up, you could just go straight up and run out of gas and come back down again. So you've got to pitch over and accelerate to like 3,500 miles an hour.

And then what amazes me is then you have to dock with your friend who's been going around the moon for three days alone. And that's hard to fathom, especially with the technology from 50 years ago, that you're going to, it's like two BBs meeting in the air. Yeah. Well, our computer in Apollo had 80K memory. My cell phone has 800,000 times that memory. But there were six programs in that computer,

and one of them was a rendezvous program. And with a series of maneuvers, it just brought you right up in front of the command module and you station cap and you just hold your position. And then he gets in position and he comes in slowly and dock. with a probe and drogue. And so he locks you up.

And the only problem was when we got back in orbit, we tracked in maybe two inches of moon dust, and all this dust now is floating around in the spacecraft. And it was so bad we stayed in our, we were supposed to take our helmets off, but it was so much dust we just kept everything buttoned up. And so Mattingly, he opens the hatch and looks in and says, You guys aren't coming in here, and he closes the hatch again. Nothing like a practical joker, quarter of a million miles from home.

So a few minutes later, he opens a hatch again and floats us over a vacuum cleaner. And we vacuumed up. It's like a little dust devil. and we vacuum all this moon dust up, and then we tell it on the radio, hey, Ken, we got it cleaned up, he opens that, and says, okay, come on over. You don't have any moon dust in your pockets right now

that you'd want to share with us. I don't have any moon dust. That was illegal to keep any. Yes, I know. So you come home from the moon, and it seems to me, I've had high moments in my life, but not that high. And it seems to me that it would be tough.

Reentry, not literal reentry, but metaphorically, that that's got to be tough because you've done something, you know, it's like winning an Oscar, except you realize hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people have won Oscars. Twelve people walked on the moon. So you are, you know, practically revered as a God. You land, and you're the man who's walked on the moon and the accolades that come with that.

So what was your life like? I really want to ask Dorothy, but she's not up here right now. What is it like? Now what are you going to do? Yeah, well, that's a question everybody had. I was 36, and after Apollo was over, I turned 37, and I'd climb to the top of the ladder. How do you top of a flight to the moon?

And everybody went through this, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do now? And I couldn't find any peace. You know, I tried, I started working. Well, after Apollo 17, we went to work on that. And then after Apollo was over, what am I going to do?

And what's the next challenge, if you will? And so you top at the ladder, and you're at the top of the ladder, you're 37 years old. You know, you've got to do something. And so I think all 12 of us went through that in some stage of the other. And so I worked on a space shuttle for about three years, and that wasn't challenging. So I took nyes off the moon and put them on money. And surely money is going to give me this satisfaction. challenge. And unfortunately, our marriage was going from bad to worse, and we were steaming towards

divorce, and a lot of astronauts were going through divorce, and John Young went through a divorce. Anyway, things were big going downhill, and we were in church, but we weren't, it was a head knowledge about God, you know, a Christian church. And nice, people, everything like that, but we just didn't have that foundation. And so Dorothy got, by 1975, she's basically on the verge of suicide. And this all is the life. I've tried everything, and my marriage is failing. And this is, this life's so hurtful. Why live any longer? Well, that was her, that was in October of 1975, and she, we were in a little Episcopal church in La Port, Texas, and one weekend they had what we call faith alive, and some people came and shared their faith about the power of Jesus to change a life.

And so after that weekend was over, unbeknownst to me, Doddy pray. and said, Jesus, I don't know. She realized she tried everything but Jesus. And she prayed that if you're real, God, I give you my life. If you're not, I want to die. And over the next two months, I watched her change from sadness to joy. Amazing change. By this time, we were moving to Houston, I mean from Houston to the San Antonio area.

and I was open in a Coors Beer Distributorship, which was very successful, so the money was pouring in. But I was still miserable. And so after a couple of years, Dottie saw this thing's changed, and she's changed and says, and praying for me, but not beat me over the head with a Bible or anything like that, just loving me and surviving. And so she saw the frustration, and so she said,

why don't you pray and ask God if he wants you in a beer business? So, you know, I was a prayer book prayer, you know. I read, and there wasn't any prayer in a prayer book about. And so I said, why don't you pray? Prayer was one sentence. It says, God, if you want Charlie in a beer business, give him peace, if you don't want him in a beer business, make it so miserable it he sells out. And so...

Now, at the reception here that we had in this VIP reception, we served moon pies. I want to be very clear. And you grabbed a moon pie and said these have been my favorite thing since I was a kid. And you also drank a beer. Yeah. So you didn't decide beer is bad. No. You just decided maybe being...

in the beer distributor business is not for you. It was an image problem, I think. So anyway, after that, the misery got worse, but the money got better. So I got a decision

to make, you know, do I chase the money or that I chase this internal stalemate, if you will. So I chose to sell out. And that was in March of 1978. in April, a friend of mine, we lived near San Antonio in a little town, and he invited me to a Bible study at T. Barr M. Tennis Ranch.

And we went to this Bible study on Friday night, all day Sunday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday. And I didn't want to go at first because, man, I've studied a Bible all weekend. Boring. God, wait. But I went, and it was the story of Jesus from Genesis to Revelations. And I went to Sunday school a lot as a kid, and so as we were going through, and the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God, these scriptures started coming back to me in a way that was, you know, John 316 for God so love the world.

he gave his only son. If you believe in him, you'll not perish but have everlasting life. And the thought occurred to me, that's either true or the biggest lie ever perpetrated against humanity. And I get to decide. We have a free will. Bigger things, and suddenly that

verse hits you that I have to deal with this verse. It's a lie, or it's true? So what did you do? How do you... I made a decision. that it was true. And I was sitting in my automobile after that weekend

with several other scriptures going through my mind. But all pointing to Jesus is the Savior. And I said, Lord, I believe that you are the Savior and come into my life, I give you my life. And no bells and whistles,

no angelic voices up here, heard or anything like, but I knew that I knew that I knew it was the truth. and I had peace inside. And as I sold the business, so I began to just read the Bible. And I was looking for another job, but I'd just read the Bible. And the more I did over the next four months, the more established I became that this is the Word of God.

And in our church, we go to a liturgical church. and every Sunday after the scriptures are read it says this is the word of God we say and so is it the word of God or isn't it the word of God and I believe it is and so I've staked my life on that and it solved my problem with my kids solved my problem with my wife it gave me a generous spirit

he didn't take away the money in fact the more you give the more he gives I've seen that and so the peace of God dwells in our hearts now we still have troubles we still battle and we still have all of these things but the foundation is solid if you will and we've built so you never had a problem being a scientist with faith that was just not an issue for you no it's not a god is the author of science. He's, when people ask me that question,

what they're really asking, how do you believe in creation or evolution? That's the debate. Is creation real or is evolution real? And so that's, you know, we go to these conferences, storm us over and it's been around now 10 years or so, and

there'll be, Dawkins comes, and And Hawkins, Stephen Hawkins comes, and all these Nobel Prize winners, and we just debate and talk. And so, and love one another. And one of the biggest atheists in the world is probably, I like him. He's a nice guy. He just doesn't believe. And so, but the whole debate is over.

over evolution versus creation, I believe. And that's really what they're asking. And you can't prove either one. You cannot write a scientific experiment or a scientific equation that proves the existence of evolution, or can you do that for creation. So it's a matter of faith. What are you going to believe?

And I choose, God spoke to me, when I say spoke to me, not into my ears, but into my heart, As I was reading the creation account, God said, which are you going to believe this or what they say? Decision. I said, I can't prove it, Lord, but I'm going to believe you. Well, what interests me also, though, is that you, when people talk about faith, a lot of times, you know, we talk about the intellectual side, but you had an experiential side. In other words, your marriage was failing. You were miserable.

Dorothy was miserable and as a result of this that changed which itself is extraordinary the idea that you could suddenly go from being miserable and hopeless to being full of purpose and joy and I take it

your marriage survived 59 years tomorrow everybody always says the first 59 years are the toughest so I think you're out of the woods I think you're out of the woods tomorrow Well, my son Tom's here too. And he and his family follow the Lord. His older brother follows the Lord.

They both came to the Lord about a year after we did. And I was a military drill instructor dad in those days. And God convicted me from Scripture. And I was demanding on them. You know, it's like a military drill instructor, dad. And I shamed them in every way else to make them do what I wanted to do. And I was reading in the Proverbs, and Proverbs says, you have the power of life and death in your tongue.

It's a powerful statement. You can speak life or you can speak death. And it's your decision. and so God spoke to my heart and said, you have cursed your own children. And I don't mean profanity. That's not what the Bible talked when it says curses. You're stupid.

That's a curse. And so I repented. I was in tears. And I said, God forgive me. And I went to the boys. And Tom was a little boy at the time. Well, maybe 9 or 10, 13 or so. and he looks up, said, that's okay, Dad.

And we begin to build our relationship on a godly foundation. It changed our whole family. And now they're raising their kids in the same way, and I haven't cursed them since. I get angry sometime, but now we've got nine grandchildren. What are we expecting great-granddaughter in August? We're blessing the socks off of our. Thank you. I wanted to end on a positive note, and we failed, obviously.

This is so wonderful. We're pretty much at a time. Time flies. But, Charlie, I just want to say I'm so honored that you would grace us with your presence. And Dorothy also, on the eve of your 59th wedding anniversary. what you did 50 years ago is something that without any question

it makes me very proud to be an American and I remember when you and the other astronauts returned from space watching the splash down and just as a kid with my mom and dad watching this stuff just having tears in our eyes

at what it is possible to accomplish and how meaningful it is and how beautiful it is. And even 50 years later, most people, if they're familiar with it, they're in awe that human beings were able to do this. But I think I'm a little bit more in awe of the fact that the rest of your story points beyond human accomplishment. accomplishment and that you are so gentle and kind and that you've spent the rest of your life talking about the one who made the moon and the earth.

So since we're out of time, let me simply say thank you for everything you've done and for being with us here. I want to say to the folks here, we will do more of these events in the fall, probably not with any more astronauts. I'm sorry to tell you that this is it. But I know that we have a patrons dinner, and anybody who has to go to that, we're going to do that. But, Charlie, just in closing, let me say thank you so much.

May I have a closing statement? You may, sir. Okay. My daddy was born in 1907, four years after the Wright brothers. and he saw me walk on the moon. And he couldn't believe it that his son walked on the moon. Think about that, from the right brothers to the moon in a little over 60 years. And Tom and his brother, when they were young, they didn't think is any big deal.

The whole neighborhood was going to the moon. Our next door neighbor was Bill Anders. Neil Armstrong lived a block behind us. Frank Borman lived in the neighborhood. Stu Russo lived in the neighborhood. John Young lived in the neighborhood. Tom Stafford lived in the neighborhood. I mean, we're all going to the moon, the whole neighborhood.

But I tell that in a joking way. but what's the important part is that we were we were carrying our kids if you if you would envision as climbing a mountain my dad climbed a mountain and he could see that next mountain he took me then and I could see a mountain farther on and I think our kids we have a responsibility to the generations that follow to encourage him and inspire them and to aim high and dream big. And if we don't do it, nobody's going to do it. And so we need to keep a focus, encourage our kids

as an Air Force model, aim high. And I think that's very important for us. So have at it. Grandmamas and granddaddy. Thank you so much. I, your host, the host, the permanent host of the Eric Metaxis show, I am in London, England. My daughter's with me, and I sent flowers, and I'm about to call Suzanne,

because the hours, it's a five-hour difference, is kind of complicated. But Chris... Hello, governor. God's straight, the queen. It's weird. When I'm here, I start talking, like, it's pretentious. where you start saying things and you think. I wouldn't say that if I was in New York, I think, what did I say to somebody?

I said something like, shall I turn up at seven? And I wanted to slap myself for talking like that. Okay, so wait, why am I in London? I want to say this. First of all, today we're running, we're rerunning my conversation with Solomon Schmidt, a very, very, very, very precocious 21-year-old who will be here for the ARC conference. I'm here for the ARC conference, which is, I think it's the brainchild of Jordan Peterson, all these conservatives gathering in London.

In hour two, we're rerunning a great conversation I had recently with Ken Fish. Do not miss it. If you missed it, first time, jump on it in hour two today. But we're taping a bunch of Socrates in the city events, starting tomorrow. I think I'm taping five Socrates interviews. while we're here. Tomorrow, I have Constantine Kissen. He, I guess, grew up in Russia. I was originally from Russia. He's a conservative. He's now here in the, I think he's in the UK. Maybe he's just here for this conference. I don't know. Ian Herssey Ali, amazing. I'm going to get to talk to her.

Ian McGilchrist. I didn't know who that was. I watched an interview with him yesterday, and I thought This is going to be a fascinating conversation. So if you're interested in watching any of these Socrates and the City conversations, you must sign up to Socrates in the City Plus. And actually, I shouldn't forget since I'm – can you tell that I'm jet lagged? I am so wacky right now. I shouldn't forget since we're talking about Socrates in the city. I'm doing a bunch of stuff over the next few days here for Socrates and the city.

But on March 13th in Lexington, Kentucky, we are having a Socrates in the city, an actual event event in Lexington, Kentucky on March 13th. And our guest will be John West, who I had on the program just a few days ago. I am really excited to talk to him in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a week later in Palm Beach, we're going back to Palm Beach because Senator Josh Hawley was not able to make the event. recently and so we've rescheduled it for March 21st. So a lot of Socrates in the city stuff to talk about that's happening and we'll talk to you later. You sheltered me from home. Hey there, folks.

In case you didn't get the memo, I, your host, Eric Metaxis, am in London, England. Chris Heimes, can you vouch for me that I'm actually in London? I'm not just saying this. Hello, governor. Fresh and your teammate? That's exactly right. Now no one believes that I'm in England. No one.

God save the Queen. I'm in London. Oh, I'm in London, I am. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. So I'm in London. And so I just wanted to remind everybody of a few things. First of all, the cruise.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. June 6th through 16th, we're doing a cruise to the Greek Islands. It's like the most gorgeous ship ever. It's the Norwegian cruise. lines, Viva, it's their newest ship. And everybody goes on and on and on about Norwegian lines. This is their newest ship, June 6th through 16th. We're doing a cruise. I'm going to be speaking six times, at least, on a number of my books. We're going to have fun Q&A. It's going to be a blast. It's

the fellowship is going to be a blast. We've got over 250 people coming. It's going to be fun. I guarantee it, frankly. I'm just like, I can't believe. that we get to do this. We're going to, like every, I mean, my goodness, we're going to Rhodes, we're going to Crete, we're going to Mekonos, we're going to Santorini, we're going to Thessaloniki, we start in Athens, we end up in Athens, we're going to be in Ephesus.

I believe Paul was in Ephesus. Check that, check on that. He spent some time there. I think you had a timeshare there. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. That's right. And also, we're going to Istanbul.

Oh, my gosh, we're going to all these places. John Smirak is coming, just to hang with John's. Merak, folks. You have no idea. He's a beast. You cannot, he's going to be there. You're going to get to hang with him. He's, oh my gosh. Anyway, if you want information on this, you've got to go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise, Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. I want to remind you that. Also, I want to remind you of the Herzog Foundation, our friends of the Herzog Foundation, if you care about homeschooling, and you should, frankly, care about homeschooling or quality, Christ-centered K-12 education. which is the next best thing. The Herdsug Foundation is there to provide free resources to help you to do that. Really and truly, they're there to help you to do that. If you're thinking about it or maybe you're already doing it, you want to help.

Go to HerzogFoundation.com. HerzogFoundation.com. HerzogFoundation.com. They're heroes. Use them. They're there for you. HerdsogFoundation.com. Also, I don't think I mention.

it often enough, but if you go to our friend Mike Lindell's website, mypillow.com, mypillow.com. Please use the code Eric. If you're buying a bathrobe, you're buying sheets or towels, incredible savings there on almost everything. Now he has these crosses. If you want to look like Mike Lindell, you want to get the exact, like it's hilarious. Please just use the code Eric to help this radio program. And I should... should also say since I'm on the subject, my store.com, you can get to my store.com through my pillow.com, but use the code Eric at my store.com. That's the only place that I think to get all three copies, I'm sorry, to get all three children's books that I wrote about Donald the caveman.

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You can get them all at my store.com, but you have to use the code Eric. If you use the code Eric, you get a monster discount. It's like, I don't know, it's like almost 50%. It's like 45% or something like that. You got to use the code Eric. my store.com, Donald the Caveman Books. All right, in case I didn't mention it, I'm in London. I am.

I'm right here in London. And I'm coming home soon. Thanks for listening.