Reflections
September 1, 1973
It started with a radio in 1961. A man named Gagarin. Coffee going cold. Twelve years later: twelve men on the Moon. I've been paying attention the whole time. I still am. I keep looking up. I keep thinking: next. What's next. Where do we go from here? I hope…
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Reflections
August 1, 1973
The Earthrise photograph from Apollo 8, and the Blue Marble from Apollo 17. Two photographs taken from beyond Earth. Both are of Earth, not the Moon. Maybe that's the real thing the Moon program gave us: a picture of home from somewhere else. A new way to see the place…
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Reflections
April 1, 1973
I went through my clipping folder last weekend. Seventeen shoeboxes. Twelve years of newspaper articles, radio transcripts, magazine features, mission summaries. Betty watched me spread them across the living room floor and said, "I told you so." She was right. I have a problem. It's a wonderful problem to have.
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Reflections
January 1, 1973
New Year's Day 1973. The Apollo program is over. Skylab is coming — a space station, American men in orbit for months at a time. A Space Shuttle is being designed. We'll be back on the Moon by 1985, surely. Maybe we'll be on Mars by the 1990s. (I suspect…
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Apollo 17
December 19, 1972
Apollo 17 splashed down today. The Apollo program is over. Twelve men walked on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972. I've written all their names. I've written what each mission meant. I don't know what to write now. I just want to say the twelve names.
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Apollo 17
December 14, 1972
Gene Cernan made the last moonwalk of the Apollo program today. Before climbing the ladder, he read a statement from the Moon. "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." Then he climbed up. No one has been back…
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Apollo 17
December 12, 1972
Harrison Schmitt was on his second EVA when he looked down and said "There's orange soil!" It was a startling discovery — color on the Moon, in a landscape of gray. Volcanic activity? Recent geology? The scientists are excited. Even after twelve missions, the Moon is still surprising us.
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Apollo 17
December 7, 1972
Apollo 17 launched at 12:33 AM on December 7th — the only night launch in the history of the Apollo program. A technical hold pushed it past midnight. From a hundred miles away, people said it turned night into day. On my television, the Saturn V rose into the darkness…
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Apollo 16
April 27, 1972
Apollo 16 splashed down today. Ten men have now walked on the Moon. Armstrong. Aldrin. Conrad. Bean. Shepard. Mitchell. Scott. Irwin. Young. Duke. I keep the list. One more mission. Apollo 17 will be the last. I don't want to think about that yet. Ten men. On the Moon.
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Apollo 16
April 21, 1972
John Young and Charles Duke are on the surface of the Descartes Highlands, and the science is already surprising. The region was supposed to be volcanic, different from the mare sites. The first samples suggest it isn't. The Moon keeps teaching us by being different from what we expected.
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