Moon Dust

Title: Moon Dust – In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth

Author: Andrew Smith

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2006 (First published 2005)

ISBN: 978-0-7475-6369-3

Pages: 349

Landing men on the moon was perhaps the greatest scientific and technological accomplishment ever achieved by the United States. Definitely this was something that scooped unequivocal praise from anywhere around the globe. For a brief moment, the world watched with bated breath the unsure steps of two of their brothers on the lunar landscape. It was an exalted moment which comes rarest in history when the world brushed aside its inter-tribal rivalries and anxiously looked on mankind’s destiny being rewritten on the wastelands of the moon. Armstrong’s small step was a giant leap for engineering and technology for a few decades to come. Judging from the cover (which you shouldn’t!) Andrew Smith’s book purported to tell the story of this heroic project, but turned out to be nothing more than interviews and chitchats with the astronauts who were part of the team. Not all of them were lucky enough to step on the lunar surface, but still, their inputs are as valuable as any. The author is English, though he was born and brought up in California. He is a journalist and is part of many influential series of articles and programs. He now lives in England.

Landing on the moon and walking on its surface seemed to have changed the lives and careers of the astronauts who performed this enviable feat. When they returned home, they were raised by the public to dizzying levels of celebrity status which most of them were unable to cope with. Then there were the hierarchies to contend with. NASA followed a fixed pattern of sending three people in each of its six successful missions, but landing only two of them. The unfortunate third guy would be sitting on a command module orbiting the moon 64 km overhead his colleagues making exultant steps on the cratered ground. They found it irksome to reconcile themselves with the hard reality that their experience was forever doomed to pale in significance to those astronauts on whom moon dust stuck to. Frustration and disappointment followed them in their careers. Even those who stepped on the lunar surface found their aura gradually wearing thin over the years. Many of them managed to land up in glamorous assignments or lucrative business deals, but eventually became disoriented. Some of them succumbed to booze and psychedelic drugs, some others followed the path of mysticism by professing pseudo-scientific but catchy phrases like Noetic sciences. Those who veered off the path of science caused more harm to the cause by pandering to the credulity of people to believe whatever the astronauts had to say.

The author’s half-critical and humorous assessment of the space race erupted between the U.S. and the erstwhile Soviet Union brings to focus an aspect which was blurred from the realm external to the scientific point of view. Russia inaugurated the space race with launching of Sputnik in 1957. Manned flight put them far ahead when the Americans’ early starts were total failures. Then came John F Kennedy, the President who was the most over-rated of the century, with his audacious declaration that the U.S. is bent on putting a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of 1960s. NASA devised a three-stage program to achieve this objective. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions were hatched to reach the target though with disasters trailing the program like the devastating fire on Apollo 1. Finally, on July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the moon from the module Apollo 11, and Armstrong’s quip that it was ‘one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind’ is one of the most famous quotes in the English language. The original plan was to launch successive missions till Apollo 20, but after the initial euphoria settled down, funds were hard to come by, contributed in no small measure by the debacle of America’s involvement in Vietnam, and three of the last flights were cancelled. Apollo 13 had to abort the travel midway due to an explosion in one of the oxygen cylinders. Thus a total of six successful missions produced twelve men who walked on the moon. A list of the people who landed there and the missions are as follows.

Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

Apollo 12, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean

Apollo 14, Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell

Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin

Apollo 16, John Young and Charles Duke

Apollo 17, Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt

The much talked about ‘Moon Hoax theory’ finds mention in the book, with a judgmental detachment that consigns it to the waste bin. And quite right too, since the hypothesis was first put forward by greedy crooks intent on publicity and circulated by shortsighted and self-important people. It is astonishing to see people deriving devious satisfaction by blindly denying one of science’s greatest achievements ever. There is a clear and logical argument put forward by Smith towards the loons postulating that the moon landing was a stage-managed photo shoot organized by NASA. We know that the Soviets lost the race to the moon and naturally, they would’ve came out with proof exposing the trick, if ever there was one. The hoax theorists usually mention Armstrong’s reticence to talk about his experience on the moon as evidence that he had not been there. This reasoning is silly and more flimsy than the senselessness of the original claim. Armstrong was an extremely reserved person loath to speak on intimate terms with anybody as the author had found out to his dismay. Smith couldn’t manage an interview with the man who took the small step!

Smith’s narrative is thoroughly off-putting because of a myopic vision and inclination to cater to the interests of American readers alone. The casual way in which he sets about interviewing his subjects and recording off-the-cuff remarks do not carry the weak central theme to any lofty heights. Such a style only helps to convey an impression that the author is more of a journalist for a Sunday edition newspaper than a serious writer of science. The book is littered with cultural icons appealing only to American youth of a previous generation in the form of music, special interest books, TV programs and authors which don’t resonate at all with an international audience. The book is plain boring on such occasions. What can you do otherwise, about terms like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Monroe, Dean and Brando, Kerouac, On the Road, West Side Story, Jimmy Porter, John Osborne and Look Back in Anger, all appearing in the same short paragraph (p.127)? And that was just a mild example!

It took great perseverance and legendary patience on the face of frustrating odds for the astronauts to victoriously make their way to the moon and back. Similar is the fate of a reader who dares to go through this book. With endless, and also pointless interviews, the unfortunate reader is forced to plough through the uninteresting and inconsequential narrative. One gets the impression at the end that even though the author had had a good time traveling widely in America and Europe for researching the book, the audience suffered in agonizing drudgery. While at it, it may also be remarked that there does not seem to be much research behind the book anyway other than the author’s chats with his subjects and their family members.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star