Moon Trip Now Just a Chip Shot

Landing on the moon was child’s play as astronaut Michael Collins led schoolchildren on a simulated space trip, commemorating the 20th anniversary of man’s first steps on the lunar surface. Collins and students from Prince George’s County, Md., schools were linked by television satellite to a mock-up mission control manned by astronaut Charles Duke and students at the Houston Museum of Natural History in Texas. Duke was the “capcom,” or capsule communicator, when Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr. set foot on the moon July 20, 1969. Collins, the Apollo 11 command module pilot, orbited the moon while his crew mates romped on the lunar surface. During the simulation at a high-tech science education center in Greenbelt, Md., Collins and the students used computers to gather moon rocks, build and launch a space probe, analyze lunar samples, monitor life support systems and operate robots and lunar rovers. “They had a good landing. They’re a team of real professionals,” Collins said of the students. “We’re ready to hire them.”

--This time it’s personal for Richard M. Nixon. For the first time, the former President will describe in detail his experiences in resigning the presidency and his life in retirement in an autobiography due next spring. “It is the most personal book I have ever written,” Nixon, 76, said in a statement. Simon & Schuster, the publisher, would not disclose terms of the contract but said it plans a first printing of at least 200,000 and a major marketing campaign. Nixon has pledged his income from the book to the Nixon Library and Birthplace, scheduled to open next year at Yorba Linda, Calif.

--Seventy years after the death of Nicholas II, about 200 people gathered in a monastery graveyard in Moscow to hold the first public Requiem in the Soviet Union for the czar who was shot, along with his family, by Bolshevik guards in July, 1918. Worshipers defied repeated orders by police to leave the prayer meeting conducted by Russian Orthodox priests at Donskoi Monastery. The unofficial Commission on the Remains of the Russian Imperial is calling for the remains of the royal family to be given Christian burials in the Peter and Paul Fortress in Leningrad, traditional resting place for Romanov royalty, Vladimir Anishchenko, a commission member, said. Monarchists have contacted Grand Prince Vladimir Kirillovich, ranking member of the Romanov family, who lives in England. “He just came back to life when he heard about our activity,” Anishchenko said.