(no subject)
Jul. 20th, 2009 07:18 pmI don't remember a thing about the Apollo 11 landing.
It was the day after my fifth birthday, and I was probably much more interested in new toys and leftover cake and trifle than the news. We didn't have TV at home -- or at my school, for that matter -- and I can't imagine my parents getting me up in the middle of the night to listen to history happening on the radio.
The Apollo program did weave itself into my early childhood, all the same. A little later, we had an Airfix rocket model in the classroom, and a couple of Action-man (GI Joe to Americans) astronauts; I collected space-program tea cards; I wrote a story about a trip to the moon by way of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn's rings; I made a cardboard instrument panel for my headboard and embarked on a mission to Mars with a crew of teddy bears, though my craft skills fell short of making convincing space suits for them. When I was nine or ten, my school class was crocodiled down to a local park to see one of the lunar command modules in a tent. (It seemed bigger to me then than the ones I saw in the Smithsonian last year, and we had to go up steps to a walkway to peer in through the windows.)
I don't think it ever occurred to me that being female might be an impediment to going into space, but I soon realized that being British was.
This afternoon one of our colleagues arranged a showing of "For all mankind" on the big screen in one of the lecture rooms, which was ... enthralling. Parts of it were completely new to me, parts oddly familiar; I must have seen scraps of footage here and there, probably at science museums or even at school; I saw Apollo 13 on TV once; there were photos on the front page of the Guardian, no doubt, as things unfolded in real time.
I had no idea that I'd grow up to earn a living looking inside the Sun.
I have the big book of moon photographs that came out a while back; I think I'll get it out tonight and look through it again.
It was the day after my fifth birthday, and I was probably much more interested in new toys and leftover cake and trifle than the news. We didn't have TV at home -- or at my school, for that matter -- and I can't imagine my parents getting me up in the middle of the night to listen to history happening on the radio.
The Apollo program did weave itself into my early childhood, all the same. A little later, we had an Airfix rocket model in the classroom, and a couple of Action-man (GI Joe to Americans) astronauts; I collected space-program tea cards; I wrote a story about a trip to the moon by way of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn's rings; I made a cardboard instrument panel for my headboard and embarked on a mission to Mars with a crew of teddy bears, though my craft skills fell short of making convincing space suits for them. When I was nine or ten, my school class was crocodiled down to a local park to see one of the lunar command modules in a tent. (It seemed bigger to me then than the ones I saw in the Smithsonian last year, and we had to go up steps to a walkway to peer in through the windows.)
I don't think it ever occurred to me that being female might be an impediment to going into space, but I soon realized that being British was.
This afternoon one of our colleagues arranged a showing of "For all mankind" on the big screen in one of the lecture rooms, which was ... enthralling. Parts of it were completely new to me, parts oddly familiar; I must have seen scraps of footage here and there, probably at science museums or even at school; I saw Apollo 13 on TV once; there were photos on the front page of the Guardian, no doubt, as things unfolded in real time.
I had no idea that I'd grow up to earn a living looking inside the Sun.
I have the big book of moon photographs that came out a while back; I think I'll get it out tonight and look through it again.
