How We Remember Apollo

Dr. Roger D. Launius, National Air and Space Museum

TUESDAY: July 7, 2009 2:00 P.M. in the H.J.E. Reid Auditorium

Abstract

What is it about the Moon that captures the fancy of humankind? A silvery disk hanging in the night sky, it conjures up images of romance and magic. It has been counted upon to foreshadow important events, both of good and ill, and its phases for eons served humanity as its most accurate measure of time. This presentation discusses the Moon as a target for Human exploration and eventual settlement. It explores the more than 50-year efforts to reach the Moon, succeeding with space probes and humans in Project Apollo in the 1960s and early 1970s. It expends considerable effort analyzing how Americans have responded to the experience of Apollo and discusses efforts to make the Moon a second home, including problems and opportunities in the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration.

Speaker

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where he was division chair 2003-2007. Between 1990 and 2002 he served as chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A graduate of Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, he received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1982. He has written or edited more than twenty books on aerospace history, including the Smithsonian Atlas of Space Exploration (HarperCollins, 2009). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the American Astronautical Society, and associate fellow of the AIAA. He also served as a consultant to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 and presented the prestigious Harmon Memorial Lecture on the history of national security space policy at the United States Air Force Academy in 2006. He is frequently consulted by the electronic and print media for his views on space issues, and has been a guest commentator on National Public Radio and all the major television network news programs.