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An MIT graduate, fighter pilot David Scott trained at West Point then joined the US space programme. He flew Gemini 8 in 1966 with Neil Armstrong, Apollo 9 in 1969 and finally reached the moon on Apollo 15 in 1971. Later he was assigned to the Apollo-Soyuz test project, and was a technical adviser on the movie Apollo 13. He now works in commercial space flight.

Is your memory of walking on the moon as strong as ever?

Most definitely. It鈥檚 a beautiful place, and what is striking is how quickly you adapt to being there. It鈥檚 wonderful to experience such a pristine environment. There are some places on Earth as beautiful, but the distance and the remoteness add another quality that is difficult to put into words. You need a poet or an artist to do it justice. Our job was to explore. A poet can describe it and leave that as a legacy.

You gave us arguably the greatest scientific legacy of the moon landings. You spotted green olivine in a boulder near Spur Crater that confirmed the moon鈥檚 origin. A poet might have missed that.

It鈥檚 exciting to have been part of something significant, but I have to be honest and say I was unaware of the rock鈥檚 importance at the time. It was a classic case of scientific discovery 鈥� something we picked on only because we knew it was different. That was part of our geological training: see something different, you take it. We discovered from our tiny sample that the moon was a piece of the Earth鈥檚 mantle blown out during a collision with another object.

Was the space race purely a product of the politics of the time? Are you thankful the cold war took place?

I鈥檇 say yes and yes. I was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. President Kennedy wanted to show the benefits of a democratic society and how it enhanced technological development. The motivation to go to the moon was politically driven. Even so, I think Kennedy was bold in saying in May 1961 that the US would be on the moon by the end of the decade. Much was preying on his mind, including the failed US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba the month before. The Soviets had tested a hydrogen bomb three times bigger than anything the US had, communism was spreading throughout the world, and the Soviets were ahead in space technology. All these factors made Kennedy take a decision many people advised him against. He had great vision and confidence in his people, because in 1961 we had no idea how to get to the moon.

How far was the US space programme set back after the fire on Apollo 1 in 1967 that killed astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee?

People were saying we had major problems: not just the fire, but with the spacecraft itself. Yet perhaps this terrible tragedy made us take a deep breath and fix things that could have caused other tragedies later. One concern we had was whether Congress would still support the programme.

You knew the men who died. Did you ever feel like quitting?

There was a lot of soul searching, but we weren鈥檛 quitters. We wanted to take charge. We wanted to fix the problem.

Was there a time when you thought the US would be beaten to the moon?

I think it was very, very close. In our book, Alexei talks about it passionately because he would have been the first man on the moon had the Soviet Union won. The Soviets were ready to launch a crew around the moon in early December 1968. They postponed the plans because their unmanned test capsules were having difficulty on re-entry. Then we went around in late December with Apollo 8. I鈥檓 sure pictures of earthrise from a Soviet camera would have affected the impression of where the two of us stood in the race. But the US did it first, and suddenly the momentum was with us.

The death in 1966 of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev affected their programme profoundly. He was the great mentor of the Soviet space programme, and everything might have been different had he lived. The Soviet leaders had such confidence in Korolev. He was everything: engineer, scientist and politician. He had run the whole programme pretty much on his own. Many factors decided the outcome, but the Soviets lost much when Korolev died.

Did the will to win the race ever overtake the need to minimise risk?

I don鈥檛 think anybody at NASA took unusual risks: calculated risk was our style. Going to the moon is difficult. It takes total commitment. Perhaps one of the misleading things we did was to make it look easy. Many people remember watching Jack Schmitt bouncing on the moon, singing 鈥淚n the merry, merry month of May鈥�. That made it look easy. It wasn鈥檛.

Did the US astronauts feel affinity with the Soviet cosmonauts, or did competition and the cold war dominate?

We came from the same world and were always interested in what the other guy was doing. The first cosmonauts I met were at the 1967 Paris air show, when Pavel Belyayev and Konstantin Feoktistov visited. When we met these guys we got along really well, the political stuff disappeared. To be honest we didn鈥檛 really know much about the Soviet programme. We knew Vladimir Komarov was killed in 1967 during re-entry because that was in the press. We didn鈥檛 know about the problems they were having with their booster, which really held them back.

How did you meet Alexei Leonov?

After Apollo 15 I realised the Apollo-Soyuz test project was the next challenging programme. Working with another country in space was a great opportunity. I met Alexei in Moscow in 1973. He was to fly on the mission. After Apollo-Soyuz in 1975 I鈥檇 see him once in a while. Then in December 1993 we had dinner after a conference and he started telling me his stories. Wow, it was fascinating. It was the start of our book project.

In the book Leonov says you had 鈥渉arsh words鈥� when you met. How did you overcome your differences?

I don鈥檛 think we had any really harsh words. We spoke through his interpreter during our first lengthy discussion in his flat, so I don鈥檛 think we were shouting and screaming. But we had an energetic, forceful discussion about our programmes and politics. But the bottom line was we liked each other. The similarities were more than the differences. We overcame the politics because we got on really well and loved flying. He鈥檚 quick, clever and has a great sense of humour. An amazing guy. Of course, we did what our countries expected of us. It鈥檚 ironic that as fighter pilots, had the situation in Hungary escalated in 1956, we might have shot each other down.

Both you and Leonov had been in danger on your first space flights. Did this draw you together?

Yes, we had both encountered life-threatening stresses which gave us common ground, but the problems were different. Alexei had difficulty getting back into Voskhod 2 after becoming the first man to walk in space. He became stuck re-entering the capsule鈥檚 airlock and had to innovate. It took sheer determination. In Gemini 8, Neil Armstrong and I were struggling to control the tumbling spacecraft.

That sounds like it was touch and go.

It wasn鈥檛 so much that, it was not knowing what the problem was. We were attached to an Agena rendezvous vehicle after performing the first docking exercise in space. There had been problems with the Agena before, so we assumed it was causing the violent motion. In fact Gemini was the problem. Taking things step by step, even in a high-stress environment, we found a solution. We later learned one of Gemini鈥檚 thruster rockets had been randomly misfiring, and to stop it Neil fired the re-entry engine. It was a last-ditch, calculated solution to stabilise the craft. And it worked.

Were you frightened?

You don鈥檛 dwell on it at the time. You鈥檝e got to keep calm, to analyse the situation. You know that if you panic, everything falls apart. At West Point I was taught to be cool under pressure. On the space programme it was the same, you don鈥檛 get distorted by fear. And when it鈥檚 over, it鈥檚 over. Neil did a fabulous job of getting us down, but looking back I guess it was pretty close. We were close to losing consciousness.

How do you train for moments like that?

People don鈥檛 understand how much time the crew spent in simulations. They were like real missions with failures built in. The supervisors knew the solution but we didn鈥檛. Afterwards they鈥檇 say: 鈥淲e failed battery number one and you missed it.鈥� So we said: 鈥淥kay, we won鈥檛 do that next time.鈥� There was never any admonishment or put-down. It was a good, open culture. Apollo 13 created a worrying situation but it was probably not far removed from some of the sims.

Had you simulated the solutions used to return Apollo 13?

No, we actually tried them out in space. When I was on Apollo 9 we tested the two parts of the spacecraft 鈥� the command module and the lunar module 鈥� using the LM and its engine as a lifeboat. That鈥檚 exactly how they returned Apollo 13. We planned for everything. We鈥檇 have a beer at night and ask, what if this or that happened, before we even started flying. NASA thought of all sorts that people don鈥檛 know about.

As the first man to fly the command module solo on Apollo 9, were you there to get the other astronauts home?

Absolutely. I spent days practising the rendezvous between the lunar and command modules. It was my job, and the responsibility that you may have to return to Earth alone comes with it. Apollo 9 was the first trial for a rendezvous of the two modules in space. I was alone, as all future command-module pilots would be, waiting for their colleagues to return from the lunar surface. The challenge was having to do everything three people normally do. So you had to know the spacecraft in great detail. I told Jim McDivitt and Rusty Schweickart to bug out. When they wanted to come back from the lunar module they had to ask permission.

Was it painful to leave the moon after Apollo 15? How did you feel?

Oh yes. It was sad because the moon became a close friend. People assume we felt isolated, but we didn鈥檛. My colleague Jim Irwin was there. You have constant contact with mission control. It鈥檚 like being on a holiday. You want to stay longer, yet you know you have to leave.

You have said how important it is to preserve the Earth. Do you have a special perspective as an astronaut?

The significance of Apollo was not so much that we set foot on the moon but that we saw the Earth from space. When you have done that you understand its place in the universe. It is fragile and the only known, very small spot humans can live on. You think: 鈥淚鈥檇 better take care of that or I won鈥檛 be exploring any more.鈥�

Are you surprised that we haven鈥檛 returned to the moon?

I thought it would probably be another 10 or 15 years. Ultimately, though, there was no reason to go back. There was no political driver and, as you know, science gets no money. Science generates so much for the world yet when it comes to providing science resources, the world doesn鈥檛 want to know.

Is it easy to cope with an earthbound existence?

You just fit in. There is nothing like the challenge of going to the moon. But when you鈥檝e been, you know you are not going again. It鈥檚 over. So you don鈥檛 just give up, you look for new things. Al Bean of Apollo 12 became a successful artist and Jack Schmitt of Apollo 17 a US senator. Historically, our missions were just a dot in time. Years from now people will just assume we got on with something new. I did.

Could you still fly Apollo?

We had to learn the control panel blindfolded, a skill I鈥檇 learned as a fighter pilot. I鈥檇 have to run some sims to get retuned, but I could probably draw you the panel pretty close right now. I could fly it tomorrow. Oh, yes.