Sputnik went up in October 1957 when I was in the 8th grade and our Science class got real excited about everything space. Then I stumbled on to my first science-fiction book in 1960 (10th grade) (Arthur C. Clark’s “Islands in the Sky”) and got hooked, reading every SF book I could get my hands on, joining the Science Fiction Book club, and wishing I could go into space (not possible for a girl in the 60s). In English, I wrote a paper on how we were preparing astronauts for space. I was thrilled by Kennedy’s pledge to go to the moon, and followed the developments avidly, and finally sat glued to the TV for the moon walk. As an aside, if it was supposed to be fake, then why didn’t they re-shoot Armstrong’s flub of what he meant to say—“That’s one small step for a man”? You can almost hear his thoughts in the pause after that sentence—“Oh God, I screwed up. That won’t make any sense. Now what … ah well, just go on with the rest of it”
Sputnik went up in October 1957 when I was in the 8th grade and our Science class got real excited about everything space. Then I stumbled on to my first science-fiction book in 1960 (10th grade) (Arthur C. Clark’s “Islands in the Sky”) and got hooked, reading every SF book I could get my hands on, joining the Science Fiction Book club, and wishing I could go into space (not possible for a girl in the 60s). In English, I wrote a paper on how we were preparing astronauts for space. I was thrilled by Kennedy’s pledge to go to the moon, and followed the developments avidly, and finally sat glued to the TV for the moon walk. As an aside, if it was supposed to be fake, then why didn’t they re-shoot Armstrong’s flub of what he meant to say—“That’s one small step for a man”? You can almost hear his thoughts in the pause after that sentence—“Oh God, I screwed up. That won’t make any sense. Now what … ah well, just go on with the rest of it”