Too much subjective speculation and not enough about the astronauts!
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This book tells more about Andrew Smith's quest to meet the nine men remaining from the twelve who walked on the Moon than it does about the men themselves. It is fascinating, much of the time. It's frustrating, too, when Smith waxes lyrical about his own memories, clearly forgetting that it's not his memories we want to hear about.
When he gets down to business and talks to Ed Mitchell, who has subsequently set up an organisation to unify science and religion, or `Buzz' Aldrin, who hit the depths of despair after his return, and found his way out of the mire again, or even why he's trying to get Neil Armstrong to describe his feelings at being the first man on the Moon, the book's compelling.
It's also the story of Apollo, and the ex-Nazi, Wernher von Braun, who was instrumental in its success. Smith details the many contradictions and conundrums of Apollo, setting it against the background of the 1960s counterculture - the 60s ended, he says, in December 1972, when the last man left the Moon.
It's a book filled with memorable encounters and observations, but at the end just two stuck in my mind. The first was from Bill Anders, who was aboard Apollo 8, and so never set foot on the Moon at all. Anders points out that the whole point, the only point, of putting a man on the Moon, was to beat the Russians, "to demonstrate American technological pre-eminence." NASA, however, was a civilian organisation, so "they started pushing exploration as the motive - and soon... began believing their own PR. When Neil Armstrong and `Buzz' Aldrin planted the American flag on the Moon, the programme was over and NASA didn't realise it."
The other, more chilling comment, came from John Young, who was on Apollo 16, and who comes over as a curious, eccentric, genius. "The chance of a civilisation-ending event occurring in the next hundred years is 1 in 455. Very high risk," he warns. "You're ten times more likely to get killed in a civilisation-ending event than you are of getting killed on a commercial airline flight." Console yourself with that next time you take off for sunnier climes!
Overall, a patchy book, often fascinating, but equally often frustrating, and certainly not the final word on these astronauts.
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Doesn't every product appeal to a different market?
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This book appealed to me straight away, dealing with a subject that I have long been fascinated in- Man landing on the moon- but that I have not yet had the inclination to wonder about any further than the fact that this amazing event happened 5 years before I was born (my wife would debate this latter point, but anyway. . .)
Therefore I would have to say that, with the added concept of interviewing the last remaining humans to have walked upon another celestial body (literally a dying breed), I enjoyed this book like no other I have read in a long time.
The writers style is relaxed, he injects just enough technical detail into his writing to make you want to find out more and I think it was great to have his own experiences linked to the unfolding story of Mankinds greatest achievement.
Overall, a triumph. The wife even read it after me. . .
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Houston, we have a problem.
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Despite a stellar launch describing the agonising suspense of the first moon landing, Moondust soon plummets disappointingly back to earth. Awkwardly caught between biography and travelogue and between accurate description and personal reflection, Andrew Smith's first book suffers from the same lack of direction that has evidently plagued the space programme in recent decades.
Putting aside the occasionally sloppy writing style, tricky phrasings and an irritating "I would later discover..." narrative device, Moondust has the feel of a distended "Where are they now?" magazine article, which may be an inevitable consequence of Smith's journalistic background. Sadly, many of the interesting observations, reflections and revelations in this account are second-hand - borrowed honestly from third-party sources, the masses of existing literature on this well-trodden subject, and rarely from the nine surviving moonwalkers themselves.
Nevertheless, the informality of this book may appeal to those who cannot stomach a more factual analysis of the Apollo programme - Smith's hazy recollection of his childhood and an ongoing commentary on the political situation of America in the late 1960's certainly sets the scene for mankind's `giant leap' into the unknown. As this is forced to prop up an increasingly skimpy collection of anecdotes from each astronaut however - not to mention a disappointing no-show from the elusive Neil Armstrong - one cannot help wondering whether other accounts of the moon landings (many of which Smith teasingly references) would provide a more fulfilling exposition of this fascinating subject.
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Not really about the moon missions!
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As a fan of early manned space travel, I was very interested when I first saw this book but, after looking through it quickly, decided not to buy it. However, I was then given it as a gift and my original opinion has been reinforced now that I have read it fully.
This book is not so much about the moon missions as it is about the author's childhood memories of the space race, his thoughts about the subject and his quest to track down all the surviving moonwalkers. If that is what you are interested in, you will probably enjoy this book. It does have some good parts and is funny at times.
If you want to find out more about the Apollo project, space travel or the astronauts themselves, this is not the book for you. I would recommend Chaikin's 'A Man on the Moon', which is the definitive work on this subject.
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Fantastic read !!!
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This book takes a more personal view of the Apollo program than the more factual Moon Shot, by looking at it from the perspective of the astronauts. There are some interesting facts and the authors observations evoke the era of the late 60's. But what resonated for me, was that it really put into context the whole endeavour and tried to understand what it must be like to be one of only a dozen men in the entire creation to have walked on another word.
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