Astronaut wonders where our confidence has gone

Jodee Taylor TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Jerry Linenger was 14 and camping with his family when he gazed at the moon from Ontario's Pinery Provincial Park the night of July 20, 1969.



"I remember lying on a sand dune and thinking, 'Our guys are up there'," he said. "I want to do that someday.""



Boy, did he.



Linenger, 54, of Suttons Bay, Mich., is a retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut. In 1997, he spent 132 days on the International Space Station. He logged 50 million miles in 2,000 Earth orbits.



Linenger pretty much devoted his life to becoming an astronaut after the lunar landing. He enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, because the highest number of astronauts are Navy grads. He studied and set his goals high.



Really high.



"The sky's not the limit," he said.



He is also frustrated during this summer's commemoration of the 40th anniversary of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 flight and moon walk. Linenger said he is frustrated more hasn't happened since.



"Why are we so timid, so afraid?" he said. " "Forty years after the fact, we still respond, 'Well, we landed on the moon, didn't we?' when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem.



"The moon landings, more than anything, taught us that with concerted effort, we can overcome anything. We need more of that can-do attitude and confidence today," Linenger said.



"Bold endeavor is what we need."



Linenger said he is proud of his contributions to the space program and sees them as a way to foster international cooperation.



"It's an international space station," he said. "It's something people can unite behind as a human race."



While onboard the space station, Linenger and his two Russian counterparts dealt with a severe fire, system failures and a near collision with a supply ship. Yet they completed all the planned experiments and more.



And for Linenger, the inspiration came in a campground on a summer night 40 years ago.



"A guy had a loud generator and a tiny black-and-white TV," he said. "The whole campground gathered around his picnic table. I was small enough to get to the front. I remember, when the generator wasn't so loud and we could actually hear the TV, that I saw Walter Cronkite break down. I thought, 'Wow, even a grown man is crying. This is great stuff.'



"The whole crowd cheered."



Jodee Taylor writes for The Record-Eagle in Traverse City, Mich.