Better, stronger, faster

With the passing of Neil Armstrong this week, scores of people are reminiscing about the beginnings of the space program and of course, that electrifying moment when the first moonwalk was televised for the world to see. In my own family, we were talking about this but also about my grandfather, who was the Director of Flight Operations for NASA when Armstrong was a test pilot, prior to his time in Florida and eventually, space. Notably, they ran tests on the X-15, a rocket-powered aircraft that set speed and altitude records in the early 1960s. In fact, the X-15 still holds the official world record for the fastest speed ever achieved by a manned aircraft. Here’s a story about a test flight gone slightly wrong: “Neil Armstrong’s X-15 flight over Pasadena.”

I grew up in Lancaster, California, where many families are associated with aircrafts in one way or another. Edwards Air Force base, where my grandfather worked, is located beside Rogers Dry Lake, a clearing amidst the desert terrain that provides a natural extension to the man-made runways. Because of this large, pre-existing landing area and the mostly clear weather year-round, the base is ideal for flight testing.

My grandpa died when I was eight years old. I remember him as a well-dressed, serious man with a tough veneer. He seemed to withdraw into the house whenever all of us were gathered—me, my siblings and cousins, 10 kids close in age; my mother says he would turn his hearing aid down so as not to hear us. (He had sustained hearing loss as a pilot). I remember that he took some satisfaction from his vehicles. They had a silver-bullet-shaped camper and a truck. They had a small, cart-like motorcycle they called the Tote Goat, a name that for some reason became attached to my youngest sister Theresa for many years.

We knew that he worked at the base with airplanes, but it wasn’t until his death that we began to understand the importance of his work. He knew local heroes like Joe Walker and national ones like John Glenn. On a wall in her spare room, my grandmother displayed a letter from President Ford, thanking her for his service. But there was one character from this cast that loomed larger than the rest: Bruce Peterson.

I’m sure you’ve never heard this name, but maybe you know another: Lee Majors. In 1974, The Six Million Dollar Man debuted on ABC with Majors as its star. The story centered around the character Steve Austin, an astronaut who had been injured in a crash and rebuilt with assorted bionic parts which made him “better, stronger, faster.” What many people don’t know is that the grainy footage at the start of each episode was actual NASA footage of a crash involving a Northrop M2-F2 “lifting body” craft and a pilot named Bruce Peterson. Unlike Steve Austin, Peterson did not have any bionic parts. He eventually recovered from his extensive injuries but lost the sight in one eye due to an infection. He passed away in 2006 in Laguna Niguel, which is very close to where I live now. Read Mr. Peterson's obituary here.

Footage of actual crash

Intro of the television show

But my brother and I sort of believed that maybe he had bionic parts, and when he came to my grandpa’s funeral wearing a black eye patch, we were awestruck. For many years, we bragged about shaking the “Bionic Man’s” hand.

I think Mr. Peterson, at least the way we thought of him, bridged the world of my grandfather’s work with ours. We were eight and ten, a time when television, stories, and real life seem to jumble together. A time when men were important and tall and did exciting things. So as the world mourns for that exuberant period where mankind reached beyond earth and built machines that would take them faster, higher, farther, I mourn for that, and for my grandpa, wishing he was here and could tell me all about it.