Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth (2005)

An interesting premise but too much shifting between analysis of late 60's American Zeitgeist & the space program. Whilst I appreciate a need to keep things in some sort of context this befuddled things for me. Not bad but not what you think ( )

It has become all too common for non-fiction narratives to be written in the form of the author's "quest for the story" (and, coincidentally, for him/herself). Probably the whole format ought to be banished for anything but extremely occasional use; but I have to admit that Andrew Smith's "Moondust" offers an occasion where it works, because some of the surviving moonwalkers were quite hard for Smith to snare, and their elusiveness is actually central rather than incidental. (Where have you gone, Neil Armstrong?) The quest for the story here is fascinating, step by step, and the material that comes out of it is enthralling. A book justifies its structure by delivering the goods, and "Moondust" does just that. ( )

An absorbing read, though at times his journalist's style was a little annoying as he struggled to find sometimes over-complicated psychological explanations for some of the Moonwalkers' reticence, when it could more easily be explained as deriving from having suffered previously at the media's hands, or from simple shyness. I am much more positive about the Apollo programme than is Smith, but he argues his case fairly well and his final conclusion is that, marginally, the programme was worthwhile because of what it told us about Earth and ourselves. ( )

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. ( )