Voices from the Moon
What it was like, in the astronauts’ own words. Excerpts from a new book by Andrew Chaikin.
- By Andrew Chaikin with Victoria Kohl
- AirSpaceMag.com, May 20, 2009
NASA
[Leaving lunar orbit] is another one of those unbelievably spectacular sights. One of the few sensations of speed you can have in a space ship. You can—during the initial departure, you can actually sense that the moon is getting smaller. I mean, you can see it. It’s like being in an airplane when you’re really moving out, you can start to see motion. And leaving the moon, you can watch that sucker get small, right there in front of your eyes—I’m leaving that sucker!...And you leave with a sense of dismay. And you really don’t want to. Because, I mean—it’s really all over? I can’t do this again tomorrow?
—Ken Mattingly, Apollo 16 command module pilot
(Photo: The lunar far side, seen from the departing Apollo 16.)
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Comments (1)
Another excellent book on this is Rocket Men by Craig Nelson. What I found fascinating about this book was the way Nelson deftly wove together the Apollo story with ongoing global events. The likes of Werner Von Brown, Walt Disney, Khrushchev, the Cold War, all come together in such a way as to shed a new light on an often told story.
Posted by Dave on July 18,2009 | 08:59 AM