Growing up in the 60s, I was a bit too young to get into the officially approved rockhippieantiwar-run off to the Height and Groove all Night-scene. That duty was relegated to my sister who was 4 years older and part of the prime demographic for VW Bugs, beads and Patchouli incense. And we were only about 35 miles south of The City. My job was to follow the moon program. So odd to think that as I write this, it is 45 years since the One Small...

Simon Plumpton uses the moniker “lunarmodule5” on YouTube. Not many people would get that, but those who do are grateful for the remarkable work he’s been doing to make the spaceflights during NASA’s golden age feel real and present again. Lunarmodule5 didn’t have those experiences first hand, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975 being his earliest memories. But that started a fascination in him such that he at one time hoped to become a...

Growing up during the prime of the space-race oriented my nerdling interests for the rest of my life. As all cravings of sorts, I can either exercise my rather pedestrian will, or cave and feed it. In this case I chose to feed it against the better judgments of my bank account. So I collect NASA artifacts from the earliest days of the space program and even before. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Sotheby’s auctioneers had an event dedicated...

Were the space shuttle to have flown in 1939, it would have still been flying when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Think about it. The phrase “the end of an era” is tossed about like a beach ball at a Giants game. But in this case it is quite true. You can almost say that it is the end of the space-program as we know it. Or at least the remnants of NASA’s “glory days”. First conceived in the minds of science fiction writers...

It’s hard to see the heroes of one’s youth slowly vanish from among us. Tonight, I am going to the “Bay Area Star Party” up at Chabot Science Center in Oakland, California. When I look at the moon, I’ll give it a special wink, as asked by his family. Please do the same. One thing I always loved about Mr. Armstrong was his humility, a trait not commonly found in the early astronaut corp. (Compare that to his fellow moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin, who...