Apollo 8 Plus 40: An Open Letter to Q's Jian Ghomeshi

[dewline]

Jian,

I was wondering if the text of that speech opening
up today's edition of your show might be posted in its entirety?

That monologue got me thinking.

I was...too young...when Apollo 8 happened,
and so missed out on the fuss and the fun. I remember
reading the Apollo 11 material in _Collier's Encyclopedia_
over and over obsessively as a child, obsessing over
the coverage of Apollo-Soyuz later on in that same childhood.

I feel as if I truly missed out on a Golden Age of
space exploration...although with all the extrasolar
planets now being discovered by astronomers, I'm increasingly
gripped by the sense that I will live and die trapped
*between* golden ages of exploration.

There is at least one way in which I hope I'm wrong
about this, and that Canada will be a self-reliant
leader in the age of exploration yet to come. Specifically,
that I will live long enough to see that next age
arrive and to know it and know at least some of what
it will mean.

Comments

[quietdarkness.livejournal.com]

What was really amazing was my grandparent's generation. They started off their lives under horse power and lived to see a man land on the moon.

I remember as a kid, sitting with my dad in the backyard, watching Sputnik pass through the sky. It was a major deal! Today I think about the lack of light pollution in the Houston of my youth and am amazed. Now you can see light from Houston literally 90 miles away.

I did grow up in the Golden Age of Space Exploration, as you call it. Astronauts were bigger than movie stars in my childhood, so it was really cool as an adult to be able to take care of one of the men who landed on the moon at my workplace. I also met one of the Apollo 13 astronauts when my husband worked for a NASA contractor.

In fact, Paul is bringing home his flag that flew in space from his office today. They are redoing the carpet and there's not many people that own something that has been up in space. We're not about ready to lose our little flag! I forget what shuttle mission it went up on, but I think it says which one it is on the seal that goes in the frame with it. Paul keeps it at his office to impress the software customers. It works, too. Working for the NASA subcontractor might not have been terribly lucrative, but it certainly had some unique perks.

I just want to live long enough to see a manned expedition to Mars. I'm afraid I won't live long enough to see it, but I'm sure as hell going to try.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Here's to both of us - and as many others as possible - managing that particular feat. It wouldn't be as much fun with less company...

[radargrrl.livejournal.com]

I was around for the whole Apollo experience, but far too young to remember most of it. I have recollections of my dad waking me up in what seemed the middle of the night to see all the footage, the blast-offs, the landings, but no clear memories of it at all. But I've always been a huge fan of it nonetheless.

I do, however, remember the famous handshake between Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov during the ASTP, and, of course, the first liftoff of Columbia.

There are only two of the Mercury Seven left now, Glenn and Carpenter, and the ranks of the Gemini and Apollo astronauts are starting to dwindle too. It's so hard to think that it's been almost a half century since Vostok 1.

There are times when I wish I'd been born 15 years earlier.