SPACE CADETS / 1969: NO BUCKS, NO BUCK ROGERS*

NASA archive

STUDY UP FOR THE 1969 MOON LANDING MEDIA BLITZ COMING A MONTH FROM NOW

Jill Lepore, writing in the New York Times last month began an article on the plethora of non-fiction works about America’s triumphant journey to the moon and back, a series of space adventures hailed as one of the 20^th centuries most remarkable achievements.

        

Every American should read Ms. Lepore as it is a wellspring for more binging about our post-July 19, 1969 world. 

Yes, it remains a stunning accomplishment for the United States.  And, in typical Yankee bravado, our words not Jill’s, we own the moon.  Read it, find a book she mentions and read those.  We still have a month before the 50^th anniversary of Apollo 11’s first footprints on the moon.

Writer, Historian Jill Lepore

        In her good work, writer Lepore challenges us to read “Hasselblad and the Moon Landing” by Deborah Ireland.  In that book, we learn much regarding those fascinating first steps on the moon and how they were photographed.  Ireland gives us a who’s who on the footprints.  Those footprints will never erode unless a 23rd-century Hong Kong developer builds condo towers on the site.  Seriously, Ireland’s book sets to rest who’s footprints are whose? Of course, the images were created using a Swedish made Hasselblad camera.

        

Not escaping the New York Times coverage of worthy Moon books is the Smithsonian’s “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives by the retired NASA historian Roger Launius.”  From his book, we learned the rush to the moon cost the country $25.4 billion or $180 billion in 21st-century dollars.   The expense then and now is explained by NASA: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”

        

For the entire text of Jill Lepore’s article: click here.

*For you insufferable post-millennials we spoon feed a historical note on Buck Rogers.  Buck was big after his first appearance in the comic book “Amazing Stories” by Philip Nowlan.  It morphed into a popular newspaper cartoon series and radio, film and TV incarnations.  Click here.

Be prepared to be "thrill-thronged"