This is an interesting approach to the Apollo Moon landings as Smith attempts to interview the nine surviving men who walked on the Moon in order to gain some understanding of what it was all about. Today is the fortieth anniversary of the first Moon landing, and this book has helped me find some perspective on all the material floating around in the ether about the space programme. I particularly liked how Andrew Smith mixed in his own recollections of his reactions to the space programme. There are flaws though, the book rambles across the events of the space race leaving the reader with no real sense of the continuity.

But the real message of this book is that as much as we may want our heros to be perfect, ultimately they are a very human and each astronaut had a very different perspective and reaction to their experiences in space and on the Moon.

I should add that despite all the hype around the Moon walkers, for me, the real heroes are the Command Module pilots, who stayed in space, spending 47 minutes of each 2 hour Moon orbit in complete isolation, 'a darkness and aloneness you could feel' and facing the prospect that the Lunar Module may not be able to free itself from the Moon's surface, as Michael Collins, the Command Module pilot for Apollo 11, says 'My secret terror for the last six months has been leaving them on the moon and returning to earth alone .. I am not going to commit suicide; I am coming home, forthwith, but I will be a marked man for life and I know it.' ( )

Smith is quite possibly the most insightful person ever to write about the Apollo program. This is a beautiful book about the nine surviving Moonwalking astronauts, plus a few of the Command Module pilots. I might have given it five stars were it not for the many minor historical errors, which a decent proofreading could have eliminated. ( )

The first chapter on landing what was not much more than a tin can on the moon is spellbinding ( )

For people who grew up during the Apollo program and manned missions to the Moon, Andrew Smith's Moondust has an intriguing premise. He sets out to find and interview the men who walked on the Moon and see how it affected their lives. Unfortunately, it ultimately yields the conclusion that many people now seem to have of the Apollo program -- a lengthy journey that is ultimately more symbolic than productive.

Smith's idea stemmed from happening to meet with Charlie Duke, who walked on the Moon as part of the next to last Apollo mission, the day after the death of Pete Conrad, the commander of Apollo 12 and the third man to walk on the Moon. Smith began to wonder about the nine Moonwalkers still alive and the fact it is likely that in our lifetime there will be no one alive who accomplished that feat. Smith, born and initially raised in the U.S. during the Apollo program but now a resident of Great Britain, sets out to interview the surviving Moonwalkers to assess how the experience impacted their lives and what, if anything, it means for our own.

Although subtitled In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, the book could more accurately be described as "my personal search to recapture my youth during the Apollo program by talking to Moonwalkers." The book is as much about Smith's own thoughts and feelings as it is Apollo or any of the individual astronauts, their family members or others he interviews. While that is not a bad thing in and of itself, he aggravates the situation by approaching his topic much like a Moon landing itself.

Just as a lunar mission required orbiting the Moon before a landing, Smith seems to write in a similar fashion. He circles around and looks at all sorts of different aspects of the subject of a particular chapter before getting to the heart of what he promises at the beginning of a chapter. Like lunar orbit, this journey has some bearing on the ultimate goal and provides some interesting scenery. Unlike lunar orbit, though, it often is not essential to the mission. Moreover, like lunar landings, when Smith finally reaches the ultimate target, he tends to follow a set agenda. His interviews often read like edited, summarized transcripts of his recordings of the interviews, interspersed with occasional comments about or descriptions of what Smith was thinking at the time.

Balance of review at http://prairieprogressive.com/?p=553

http://home.earthlink.net/~karen20000... ( )