My interview with Walt Cunningham features in the March 2009 issue of Spaceflight published by the British Interplanetary Society.

Interesting, very interesting - documentary due on television coverage of the moon landings.

There's an interesting story today on Space.com about a new documentary charting television's coverage of the moon landings. Live from the Moon debuts next month in the US - and is set for a UK release to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo X1 moon landing in July.

I'm going to track down the production team to see if there's any way I can get a sneak preview....It could well be worth reviewing for Spaceflight - and including in the disso.

General Musings

I'm feeling rather more upbeat about the dissertation - and its possibility of it evolving into a book further down the line.

Weirdly, that feeling was boosted by an event I attended at the British interplanetary Society at the beginning of the month following the fortunes of women in space. The audience was older, knowledgeable and eager for information - but neither the presenter or his colleague who facilitated the Q&A were that great.... I've always been a bit daunted that my understanding and enthusiasm for the history of the Space Race might be a bit noddy when placed alongside those who make a living writing about it. And while my detailed grasp of the minutiae may pale beside those who spend their lives in the more geeky aspects of space research, I've actually found that the knowledge I have of the period and the politics around the space programme is actually pretty good - and the perspective I bring as one born during the Gemini programme gives me a slightly different outlook to those who were adults already when the Cold War dawned.

I was furthe bouyed up by a good old dose of Apollo TV over the weekend when I caught up on Discovery's NASA's greatest missions. Now I've seen more or less all of the original foorage in other packages before, but these were good programmes, well researched - and it's always good to see the likes of Kranz, Aldrin, Armstrong (a rarity!), Duke and Cernan enthusing about the missions.

My final bouancy device is to find there's a possibility that my own university may part-fund next Spring's research trip to Washington and Austin. It'll be a great relief to secure even partial funding and while confirmation is far from certain, things are looking a tad more hopeful.

Happy Birthday BiS

Happy birthday to the British Interplanetary Society (of which I am a member!) - 75 today, making it the second oldest organisation in support of space exploration in the world.