James B. Irwin, 61, a former Utahn and the first of the 12 moonwalking astronauts to die, was remembered Friday as a quiet, competent, reserved man who was intensely religious.
Irwin died Thursday night, apparently of a heart attack, while on a speaking tour of central Colorado Christian organizations. He had lived with his family in Salt Lake City while a youth, and graduated from East High School. From Utah he went to the Naval Academy.He had a religious experience on the moon in 1971 and it became the centerpiece of his life. Another situation that Irwin also dated to the time of his astronaut service - according to former Utahn James C. Fletcher, who twice headed NASA - was heart trouble.
"As a matter of fact, he always felt it (his heart disorder) had something to do with his flight to the moon," said Fletcher, who also is a former president of the University of Utah. Fletcher was interviewed by telephone from his home in McLean, Va.
Fletcher said NASA didn't substantiate Irwin's claim about heart problems because he was the only astronaut to develop the problem. "It's a pretty small sample. We couldn't contend one way or the other," he said.
Still, the former NASA chief said, "there is indication that long periods of weightlessness could cause an enlargement of the heart. We found that out on the Skylab."
Skylab came later than Irwin's moonwalk. It was a space station that fell from orbit in 1979.
"But none of the others suffered heart disease," Fletcher said. "He may have been right," he conceded of Irwin's contention about his heart disease.
Fletcher remembered Irwin as a "very good astronaut, very competent." He was friendly, dedicated, quiet and reserved.
His personality seemed to undergo a change because of the moon trip, which he made with fellow astronaut David R. Scott. While Irwin and Scott were the first to use the special buggy called the Lunar Rover, Alfred M. Worden was orbiting the moon in the command module.
"He was a different person before and after the flight," Fletcher said of Irwin. "Before the flight he was a kind of swashbuckly, very self-confident, astronaut.
"After the flight - he got a spiritual experience, as he called it - he became a very devout Christian."
Fletcher said in his post-flight days Irwin was contemplative. "Before he would answer a question he'd think about it for a while."
He was "very loyal to Utah, by the way. When he was asked to come to a function he generally responded, if he wasn't tied up with something else."
Irwin founded a religious group called High Flight Foundation. "He had several astronauts enrolled in it for a while and spent a fair amount of his career after the landing on the moon, mounting expeditions to Mount Ararat to look for Noah's Ark."
He also lead searches for other Biblical artifacts, such as the Arc of the Covenant, which he thought might have been stored in a cave on Mount Nebo in Jordan; and chariots of the ancient Egyptians who died while chasing Moses and the Israelites into the Red Sea.
"He may have been a born-again Christian," Fletcher said. "Quite religious, and able to articulate the experience he had on the flight."
Several astronauts had religious experiences while in space, he said. But none were able to articulate them as well as Irwin.
In a Deseret News interview published last year, Irwin said he felt he was called to a religious life while he was on the moon.
His life was changed forever because of the experience, he said. "I felt high and lifted up. We camped for three days in a beautiful little valley in the high mountains of the moon."
Equipment malfunctioned and he didn't know how to fix it, so he began to pray. "I just heard the Lord say, `Jim, down on your knees.' " When he knelt, from that position he could see what the problem was with a release mechanism on a transmitter. "It was obvious what had broken. I was able to fix it," he said.
"Jesus walking on the Earth is more important than man walking on the moon," he told the paper. "I believe that is the most important thing I could ever share . . . I hope I've been faithful in doing that ever since I came back."
He remembered working for Makoff's clothing store in Salt Lake City when he lived in Utah. He learned to love mountains and mountain-climbing here, too.
"Oh, my fondest memories are Salt Lake City and the everlasting hills around Salt Lake. So it seemed almost providential that I'd be able to go and explore the mountains of the moon," he said.