PAROWAN -- Thirty years after the United States put Neil Armstrong and Edwin A. Aldrin on the moon, another astronaut doubts the nation will ever return.
"President Kennedy was pretty persuasive," said Frank Borman, who circled the moon to chart a landing site before Armstrong and Aldrin touched down. "I don't think we'll ever have the political will to go back."Borman, now 70, hasn't quit flying. In between practice stunts for Saturday's air show in Parowan, he assessed the 1969 race for the moon against the Soviet Union.
"It was a battle of the Cold War. Over 40 years, we had three major conflicts, Korea, space and Vietnam," he said. "The one we won decisively was space."
After retiring as an astronaut, Borman went on to run Eastern Airlines. He now owns an auto dealership in Las Cruces, 220 miles south of Albuquerque, and stays fit and trim by working out three times a week. At 163 pounds, he weighs less than when he spent six days traveling to the moon and back in December 1968.
"One of the two most notable moments of that flight was looking back at Earth on Christmas Eve," Borman said. "Earth was the only color in the sky. The other notable moment was getting out onto the deck of the aircraft carrier after we landed and beat the Russians."
Borman's flight paved the way for Armstrong and Aldrin to make the first moon landing July 20, 1969.
Borman still can't get enough of flying.
"Flying is a dread disease," he said after jumping out of the cockpit of a plane at the Parowan airport. "There is no cure."
He was supposed to fly a World War II era P-51 Mustang in the air show, but a mechanical breakdown nixed that. Instead, he piloted a World War II era T-6, the same model he trained in while serving in the Air Force.
During Friday's warm-up session, Borman put the T-6 through its paces, looping, rolling and pushing the aircraft. He swooped down low on the runway, then abruptly banked upward. On the tarmac, he unzipped his flight suit and reached for a bottle of cold water.
"This is a beautiful part of the world," Borman said. "I've been here before. I was at the Shakespearean Festival last year, and I've spoken at the university."
Borman has served as a Special Presidential Ambassador to the Far East and Europe and holds the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal.
Looking back, Borman says he has no regrets about not being picked for the moon landing.
"I was in the military," he said. "I did my job."