The meandering nature of the narrative reinforces the feeling that the book, initially published earlier this year in Great Britain, is far more a personal exploration than anything else. In fact, at one point late in the book, Smith admits to "finding that the thoughts and questions the Moonwalkers provoke when we look at them are more valuable than any answers they might attempt to provide; that our fascination is not about them, it's about us."
That is ultimately the problem here. We hear too much about Smith's thoughts and questions and his fascination with how the Apollo program and the Moonwalkers affected him, taking us too far from the initial promise of the book. Smith does provide an interesting but too short evaluation of how all this affects his evaluation of the worth of the Apollo program.
By then, however, we have spent far too much time in orbit around rather than really exploring those few men who have actually stood on the surface of another celestial body.
Edited: PC
Article comments
1 - Pat Cummings
This book review has been selected for Advance.net. You'll be able to find this and other Blog Critics reviews at such places as Cleveland.com’s Book Reviews column.
2 - Paul Cooper
I think having read the book that it brings into sharp relief for me the question: was it worth it? To me the answer that Andrew implies and I now see more clearly is that it depends on whether the outcome rather than the act itself prevails and makes a difference longer-term. E.g was Vietnam worth it? No (in my opinion) because the outcome did not prevail finally. The jury is currently out on Iraq. For Apollo I give the same answer as for Concorde. No because in the end they were technological dead ends. Both in effect were accomplished two decades too early. And because the outcomes did not then become sustained (e.g. the moon was not used as a stepping stone to planet exploration - recalling as per Arthur C. Clark that energy-wise the moon is halfway to the planets) Apollo must be viewed, alas, as ultimately a one-time stunt that may have actually stopped more longer approaches prevailing.
I'm also so sad about the failure of Deke to send someone other than straight techos to the moon for the first journey. What a shame that Pete and Al Bean weren't first. Instead we got a crew of machines (okay - I acknowledge that they had a hard job to accomplish) and the population switched off.
I note also that Andrew didn't really refer to Gagarin - I wonder if anyone recalls his own description of his return to earth from orbit? Wow I remember it to this day - "I was in a ball of fire plunging earthward!" Poetic.
And all this son-father stuff in the book rings true. My dad for example seems to want me to believe it was all hoax - it's like all dads want to burst the bubble on our precious innocent memories of those days. Why? Perhaps because they didn't really feel the emotional wonder of it - it's like only boys and some girls younger around 10 - 13 really felt it - take a look at the boy in the film "The Dish" and you see how I felt at the time. Amazing. Never to be forgotten. Not just a blip in our parents busy lives. For me it was a major life epoch. And then nothing was followed up. What a waste. That's the tragedy.
And Neil just doesn't seem to get it if he only wants to talk about future space in the abstract - Andrew is right, people want to connect again to the feeling of the time and help make some sense of the effort and the achievement. And what about the fact that Buzz apparently took not one photo of Neil on the moon (I have heard because he was angry that Neil was first to step down) - and then the irony that their actual faces are never seen because of the mirrored gold visors - so in fact these days every photo of Buzz is assumed to be that of Neil! Talk about poetic justice. Wow no wonder Buzz melted down.
Overall a good and thought provoking book that left me feeling sad I must confess. Paul