Apollo Appeal
One of my earliest memories is watching a lunar landing on television. I don’t recall which mission it was, I just recall seeing the fuzzy black and white images on television one morning. My guess it was Apollo 14, although there is a possiblity it was the original Apollo 11 landing; I would have been three years old at the time, but I suppose its possible.
Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with human and robotic exploration of outer space, especially the Moon. Eileen found Destination Moon for me at the local library and its been a real treat to read. It’s a nice coffee table book with magnificant photography as well as snippets of the communications between astronauts and NASA controllers. Most of the words I already knew but others were new and often quite interesting, especially the earlier missions that aren’t as well known as those missions that actually landed on the Moon. The book also contains numerous biographical references for the crews of every Apollo mission in addition to the photography.
I’m also a fan of the video series From the Earth to the Moon. I think I’ve written about it before, it’s a brilliant record of the amazing story of the NASA program that successfully put a human onto the surface of the Moon in less than ten years. Reading this book makes me want to watch it again. If you aren’t familiar with this series then you should immediately rush out to the library or video store to get the first episode.
I’m older than you Bob, and can remember seeing the Apollo 11 landing with my folks in Edmonton. They used to have this annual fair called “Klondike Days” and that year they had a huge truck come up from Odessa Texas to make BBQ beef. Turned out that weekend was rainy, so they moved the whole kaboodle into the Kinsmen Fieldhouse. I seem to recall – althought how they could do it in 1969 I can’t guess – a large format tv showing the landing that evening. I recall standing outside looking up at the moon imagining we could see those guys cavorting around the lem…
Comment by Dave Kauffman — August 18, 2006 @ 9:01 pm