Doug Mataconis remembers, or at least commemorates.
I would add, as I do in the book, that this was also when we really won the space race, not when we actually landed on the moon. It was our “first,” and the first time the Soviets realized they couldn’t beat us.
The book is currently listed at 132 thousand or so at Amazon, but it’s number five on this specialty list (number three, really, since the books ahead of it are only two, in different formats).
I didn’t expect the book to be available for purchase at Amazon for another couple weeks. This is the first thing in this project that happened ahead of schedule.
Jeff Foust discusses the issue over at The Space Review (spoiler warning for those who haven’t seen it). Also spoiler warning for people who read the rest of the post.
An apparently before-coffee tweet from Wayne Hale this morning kicked off a minor exchange that reminded me of this back and forth I had with Homer Hickam at the LA Times on the fiftieth anniversary, six years ago. I think it holds up pretty well.