Rocket Men

I have been lucky in many ways in being one of the last of the baby boomers. I never saw the Great Depression; I never saw World War II or Korea; and I was too young by six months for Vietnam.

But I did get to see Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moon.

I thought that I had read about and seen enough documentaries to have a good understanding of America’s man-in-space program. Last week I picked up Rocket Men by Craig Nelson.

Nelson’s book is filled with new interviews as well as well as archival pictures and on-the-record talks with the engineers, scientists, and astronauts who were there and what happened to many of the major figures after it was all over. The focus on the first part of the book is the engineering team that put it all together and the hurdles faced with inventing all new technology, engineering disciplines, and even project management.

There’s an old joke told about an Apollo astronaut at a dinner party where everyone there is bragging about their career – the doctor is a famous heart surgeon; the inventor built a new computer chip; the chef had created a new chocolate concoction and the astronaut says, “I walked on the moon.” Conversation stops as nobody there can top that. Buzz Aldrin relates that this pretty much happened to him and caused several years of depression and alcohol dependence. After you’ve been to the moon, what else is there? I have been fortunate enough to travel and there are places I’d like to see again – if I save up the money I can travel back to Paraguay, Lisbon, London, or Istanbul. People talk about a “once in a lifetime experience” when they go to Disneyworld but they can go back. But the moon is out of reach to the men who once went there and that fact left scars.

Read it – you won’t be disappointed.