Astronaut wives: The other space pioneers

Neil Armstrong took mankind's first step on the moon exactly 45 years ago today. Other moon missions followed, but the astronauts weren't the only ones of those journeys. Their wives back on Earth were along in spirit . . . and what better time than this anniversary to hear from them, as Lee Cowan reports:

An earlier version of this story was originally broadcast on June 16, 2013.

It ranks among our greatest human endeavors -- going to the moon.

It was a staggering feat of engineering -- but that carried with it astronomical risks.

The men of NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were national heroes. But they were husbands and fathers, too -- and the wives who stayed behind while their OTHER halves explored OTHER worlds -- were part of a sisterhood with an orbit all its own.

"I think we girls all shared something that no other group of women shared in history," said Marilyn Lovell. She was in the headlines right along with her husband, astronaut Jim Lovell.

In 1968 he was the command module pilot on Apollo 8 -- but Apollo 8 isn't why they make movies about Jim Lovell.

His heroism -- later depicted in the movie by Tom Hanks -- helped avoid disaster aboard Apollo 13. But it was no movie to Marilyn.

For four days in April 1970, every agonizing moment of her husband's dire situation was playing out not only in her living room, but across the country.

"As the years went on I thought, 'What would I have done if I had become a widow?'" Marilyn said.

From his earliest days as an astronaut, his career came first. Even when she found herself pregnant, Marilyn Lovell hid it from him for four months, fearing that it might ruin her husband's chances of going to the moon.

"I went, 'Let's see, four months, five, six, seven -- you're gonna be having the baby when I'm in space! Don't say anything!" Jim Lovell laughed.

If it all sounds like the astronaut version of "Mad Men," it was, says author Lily Koppel: "They weren't being flung into space, but they were dealing with the stress of having their husbands ride this giant rocket where no man had ever gone before, and also sort of projecting the perfect American family image."

She's compiled many of their very real wives' tales in a recent book, "The Astronaut Wives Club."

"Each women I think, dealt with the mission of having a husband in space on her own terms," said Koppel.

In the late '60s, the wives -- like Sue Bean, once married to Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean -- used to live close to one another, in a neighborhood outside Houston that was a kind of "space suburbia."

"I became pretty independent, living by myself with the children," said Sue Bean. "Because the fellas didn't have time to do the checkbook, they didn't have time to do the yard very often."

Cowan gathered Sue together with three other "Astrowives": Jeannie Bassett Robinson, who had proudly been astronaut Charlie Bassett's wife; Jane Dreyfus, once married to Pete Conrad, the third man on the moon; and Barbara Cernan Butler, the former wife of Gene Cernan, the LAST man on the Moon.

Barbara Butler said, "There were certain things you couldn't do. You couldn't go outside in your bathrobe. You had to be dressed, and you had to have your makeup on and your hair combed. . . . And you couldn't drink too much!"

Jane Dreyfus said there was pressure to be "the perfect American family." "Oh, I think we knew we had to be, 'cause we didn't want to have anything upset our husband's flights." They were also very competitive: "Uh-huh. We had to be, yes. Because we all wanted our husbands to be the first, or at least we wanted them to be up there at the top of the list."

"Was that hard?" asked Cowan. "I mean, were you always sort of watching your Ps and Qs?"

"Well, we were perfect! What'd you expect!" laughed Barbara Cernan Butler.

They can laugh about it now -- but the stress of knowing (or sometimes NOT knowing) the danger their husbands were in took a toll each and every day.

"You face it," said Robinson. "You have to cope with it."

She learned to cope early. Her husband, Charlie Bassett, was training for Gemini 9 when he died in a plane crash along with fellow astronaut Elliot See.

The first people at Jeannie's house that day weren't from NASA; they were other wives.

In 1967 they raced to each other's side after the Apollo 1 tragedy, too, when three astronauts lost their lives in a fire during a routine test.

"The guys were supportive, but the wives were just there," Robinson said. "[Their] presence means so much to them. I mean, we were really close."

But while the wives have remained close to this day, most of their marriages fell apart.

"We were just young and inexperienced and not ready for a lot of it, so I think that it took a real toll on, I'd say, the majority of our marriages," said Barbara Cernan Butler.

In fact, only a handful of astronaut marriages lasted. Jim and Marilyn Lovell's was one of the lucky ones. They just celebrated their 62nd anniversary this month.

The moon may have gone to his head, but it went to his heart, too. He actually named part of the moon after Marilyn: "Mount Marilyn, right there on the coast of the Sea of Tranquility," said Lovell.

And then there was the Christmas present he sent to her doorstop while he was still in space.

"I opened it, and it was a mink jacket, with a little card in there saying, 'Merry Christmas from the man in the moon,'" recalled Marilyn.

"That's class -- no guy is ever going to be able to top that, you realize that?" said Cowan.

"I have to admit, that was classic," Jim laughed.

Among all those mid-century images of dutiful wives watching their husbands rocket to glory, the wives of Apollo 12 perhaps summed it up best: Despite all the trials and all the hardships the wives endured, being a part of the space race still left them feeling "Proud, Thrilled and Happy."

For more info:

• "The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story" by Lily Koppel (Grand Central); Also available in Trade Paperback, eBook, Audio CD, Downloadable Audio and large print formats
• Read an excerpt | Reading group guide (pdf)
• astronautwivesclub.com
• Lily Koppel's Tumblr page
• Interviews in Houston were filmed at the Hotel Zaza, formerly the Warwick, home of the astronauts' "Moon Ball"
• NASA's history website
• Lovell's of Lake Forest