Teacher * Researcher * Sociologist
It’s been a surreal couple of weeks with the Artemis II mission, after so many years since the Apollo days. It brought back memories like they were yesterday, yet so much has changed. To hear more about my reflections on the two different space eras, especially about astronaut families, have a listen to my interview […]
Here’s the Whole Astronaut Team. 30 Men – One Will Be First on Moon. With their sights on the moon, 14 new astronauts will report for work here Monday. They were officially introduced last October and bring to 30 Houston’s growing family of astronauts. The nation’s finest, they were selected under the goal to land […]
I recently watched an absorbing documentary about the historian Robert Caro and his long-time book editor Robert Gottlieb. The title of the film is “Turn Every Page” – from a quote that Caro often cites when talking about his research. When he was a young reporter, his editor Alan Hathaway, told him: “Just remember, turn […]
UPDATED August 11 , 2024. After a year and a half of research, my Moonshot Astronaut Families project has taken on a sharper focus: the story of one cohort of astronaut families, particularly the wives, of NASA Astronaut Group 3, and a longer time frame (so much data and still more to gather). Below is […]
Celebrating my mom today. She would have been 85 years old. She died in 2016, before I had the idea for my current research project (Moonshot Astronaut Families). I spent many hours going through her papers after she died, and I discovered new, and sometimes surprising, insights into her life during the early astronaut days. […]
What was the Moon Shot era really like? Over the last 50 years, many accounts have been written about the Moon Shot era, from many different angles. Yet, the reality of that extraordinary accomplishment was complex, and primary sources from the time still hold a wealth of stories that have yet to be told. At […]
“What was it like to walk on the moon?” My father* has heard that question thousands of times. I’ve heard it dozens of times, as his daughter. There is no quick, easy answer. The reality was rich and deep and complex, for each of the individuals who went to the moon. Moreover, the question overlooks […]