Book Description

The Apollo Moon landings have been called the last optimistic act of the 20th century. Twelve astronauts made this greatest of all journeys & all were indelibly marked by it. In Moondust, journalist Andrew Smith reveals the stories of the nine still living men caught between the gravitational pull of the Moon & the Earth's collective dreaming: Here, we relive the flashbulbs, the 1st shocking glimpse of Earth from space, the sense of euphoria & awe. This was the 1st global media event, after all, & the astronauts were its superstars. They had been schooled by NASA for every eventuality in deep space but were completely unprepared for fame. On their return, they struggled to balance notoriety with a spaceman's frugal paycheck. These perfect specimens of mind & body were, ultimately, only human beings thrust into an impossibly intense spotlight. Possibilities bloomed & marriages crumbled under the strain. It wasn't just the astronauts who'd changed; the world was changing, too. As the Apollo program wound down, the wild & happy experimentations of the 60s gave way to the cynicism & self-doubt of the 70s, & the Moonwalkers faced what was, in some ways, their greatest challenge: how to find meaning in life when the biggest adventure you could possibly have was a memory. Some traded on past glories; others tried to move on. Some found God; some sought oblivion; some reinvented themselves & discovered a measure of happiness in a completely unexpected place. Smith sees them thru the eyes of the boy who flung down his bike on a summer evening to hear Neil Armstrong utter his fateful words--& thru the eyes of a grown man balancing myth against reality & finding the truth infinitely richer & more moving. A thrilling blend of history, reportage & memoir, Moondust rekindles the hopeful excitement of an incandescent hour in American history & captures the bittersweet heroism of those who risked everything to hurl themselves out of the known world--& who were never again quite able to accept its familiar bounds.--Nat'l Review Bookservice