Star Bound №14: Apollo Up Close and Personal
One Man’s Account of Covering the First Moon Landing
David Chudwin’s memoir I Was a Teenage Space Reporter is a fun, informative trip back in time to July of 1969, when David and his best friend Marvin Rubenstein (also a talented author) wangled their way into a trip to Florida, where David covered the Apollo 11 launch for a network of college newspapers. Though David became a physician after attending the University of Michigan as an undergrad, he learned to write in the offices of The Michigan Daily, one of the great college cage liners. His journalistic training shows. He’s a sober, fact-based writer, careful with dates, places, quotes and impressions. Included in the book are photos and notes he took while on assignment, so what we get is a product that’s history, memoir, photo album and expense report all rolled into one. Also incorporated is the author’s lifelong fascination with cosmic exploration and the people involved in it — David’s love for space shines through every page. If you want to know how it felt to be on the scene when Neil, Buzz, and Mike walked out of the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building to begin their historic journey to the moon, this is the place to start. Also worth noting for you bibliophiles out there: David’s book is a little piece of art in and of itself, beautifully designed, well laid out, and with a clever, curvy timeline graphic gracing the first few pages. These details, along with the fantastic title, make I Was a Teenage Space Reporter a must read — I said Must Read, not Musk Read — for serious space aficionados.
