For some reason this feels like a good weekend to write something related to my interest in the Apollo space programme.

One of the books I read on holiday this year was Moon Dust by Andrew Smith which tries approaches the Apollo history from an unusual angle. We know what happening inside the spacecraft but we don’t really know how the journey to the moon and back affected those who experienced it — what happened inside the astronauts?

I would strongly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in understanding the history of America’s moon programme. I really enjoyed both the writing and the material that was unearthed about these men. Not wanting to spoil too much of the book, I will just highlight I found the following points particularly interesting.

• The way the early astronauts were selected was (by today’s standard) perhaps amateurish and there was fascinating diversity in the Astronauts that might not be tolerated today.
• All of the moon walkers were only or first sons.
• Of each pair who landed on the moon was there something that changed the LM (Lunar Module) pilots (who actually had little to do with flying the LM) or simply that the mission commanders were chosen to be more focused and less imaginative?
• There are no posed pictures of Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon

Go read the book!

Posted on July 19, 2019   #History     #Space