From the Earth to the Moon

Space-related things have somewhat been one of the many things that easily gains my interests. In middle school, I got into huge argument with my father who was against my decision to resign from my then ongoing-for-2-years- extra curricular music program and joined the astronomy club instead. I remember vividly how he attacked my long speech about the successful Moon missions - he stated how foolish I was and how foolish everyone else was to believe that man ever landed on the Moon. It got me thinking for only a few minutes. I did join the astronomy club without my parents' consents. It only lasted a few months. My father found out, the principal found out, my music teacher found out, and my astronomy club teacher found out, too, that I technically ditched my assigned program. I was forced to return to the music class, which honestly, I hold no regret on. Still, I could remember some of the classes I had in the astronomy club, they were so much fun.

One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13. It offered great thrills, manly figures of astronauts, images of high-tech machines, depiction of great humanity, and awesome soundtrack. The story of Apollo 13 is definitely one of the greatest ones ever told. Jim Lovell became my all-time favorite astronaut (he also looks a little bit like my maternal grandfather, that's why). During my final month of college, while spending many late, late nights doing my final assignments, I played the movie Apollo 13 over and over and over again every night to accompany me doing my work. I wasn't necessarily watching it, mostly I was just listening to it in the background. After this one-month period of daily Apollo 13, I came across an HBO tv-movie documentary series called From the Earth to the Moon, which was produced by Apollo 13's cast, Tom Hanks and Apollo 13's director, Ron Howard. I only managed to download 7 out the 12 episodes, then, which I found very appealing already. Last month, I made the purchase of the whole box set of 12 episodes from Amazon.com and had a marathon. It was wonderful. The whole series tells us about the whole progress of Apollo mission. Each series was written about the different mission flights, and each of them was written from different point of views which then allows us to at least try to understand how it was such a huge accomplishment for human race to land a man on the Moon. 

Regarding my father's remark on his skepticism, I would say he's more like half and half. He's a smart man, that's why. He doesn't usually swallow everything that is give to him. But I will always remember what astronaut Charlie Duke said at the end of documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, "We've been to the Moon nine times. Why would we fake it nine times, if we faked it?"

Last month I had not only marathon of From the Earth to the Moon, but I took out all my space-related books and DVDs and had quick catch-ups with them. They brought back so much excitement. They even got me the idea of a rocket papercut! Roar!

I thought that the hard part was going to be the tiny outlines of the rocket SaturnV, but turned out the texts were the hardest part. I like it. I hope you do, too.