I've heard many times that they had less computing power in their spaceship than we have in our iPhones today, which is also mind boggling. HOW did they make it happen??? Maybe the fact that it was 50 years ago that makes it extra amazing, they didn't have nearly the technology we have now and yet, they went to the Moon.
My Dad graduated high school the summer of the moon landing and, I think, always had a fascination with space travel. This lead to visiting a lot of space themed museums when I was a kid, U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Air and Space in DC, and the other one outside of DC (pretty sure it was this one)? So by being through a couple of those I've picked up a few things about the space program and NASA. It's crazy reading about things like the isolation chamber they had the astronauts in after Apollo 11 and then also know that I SAW that when we were at one of these.
When my husband was telling me recent news about new moon missions, I was struck for a second, don't we already have people there? Then I realized I've just read a number of books about Moon missions and Mars landings and sometimes my reading infiltrates my thinking. Nobody has colonized Mars yet, except in books! Crazy to think about what could happen in the next 50 years!
Here's 7 books about space travel, in case you would also like to confuse your brain on whether or not people live on the Moon.
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1) Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
Nobody lives on the moon in this non-fiction book, about the wives of the first astronauts. The first time I read it I had trouble keeping all the astronauts and their families straight but then I reread it after watching the tv show and it was a little easier. Fascinating reading about these women and what life was like for them while their husbands were making history.
2) The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
I wasn't sure about this book when I first started it - it takes place in the 50s and 60s when the space program is suddenly escalated when a meteorite hits the US near DC and all of a sudden they think they need to colonize the moon because the Earth is going to be inhabitable within a few decades. The main character is a computer for NASA and her husband is the head engineer, it sci-fi but mostly grounded in reality, just an alternate reality. Once I got into the story I really did enjoy it and eagerly picked up the second in the series a few months later.
3) The Martian by Andy Weir
This was a pretty enjoyable book and the movie was good too although, warning, there is A LOT of language (being stranded on Mars might do that to a person). Mark Watney (Matt Damon in the movie) is with a team on Mars when the weather flares up (one of the few parts of the story that is really untrue to what Mars would be like), his team thinks he is dead and leaves without him. He's not dead and spends more than a year on Mars by himself while NASA tries to figure out how to get him back. I get chills at the end of this even though I've read the book and seen the movie a few times. Sometimes it got a little too sciencey (I don't understand all the chemistry he talks about) but for the most part it was pretty enjoyable. My husband read it too and liked it.
4) The Wanderers by Meg Howrey
This book takes a couple of astronauts (one American, 2 from other countries, I'm pretty sure) and places them in a highly realistic, 17 month simulation of what a trip to Mars will be like in a few years. The book follows them in their simulation and some of the family members they leave behind. Only, is this really a simulation or are they being sent on a long trip actually into space? I have thoughts on the answer to that. But it was much more about the emotions than about the science of going into space.
5) Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
This is a highly researched book about sending humans into space for extended periods. Like, things I hadn't even thought would be considered (I remember there being waaaaaay more than I expected about human waste management in space). I liked the first part of the book the best, before it started to drag a bit, but there is clearly a lot of thought about what it takes to send humans into space.
6) Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
This book is following a team that went all the way to Jupiter, much further than any of the other books in this list explored! It follows one man who is in an isolated station somewhere cold and North and also a woman who is on the way back from that Jupiter trip. Both lose contact with the rest of the world and don't know who or what else is still out there. These two people eventually connect with each other, while trying to grapple with the world as they know it probably not existing anymore. It was a bit haunting and not fast paced but well written and thought provoking.
7) Artemis by Andy Weir
I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book but picked it up because I did enjoy The Martian. We have colonized the Moon in this book and I liked the details about what life could be like on a Moon base and how the Apollo 11 landing site is a tourist destination. I didn't like how so much of the story seemed to hinge on welding going just right because that's just not that interesting of a plot point, especially to someone, me, who knows nothing about welding. So the world was interested but the details were not.
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