Review: The Other Moonshot
There is a question that I think about regularly enough to consider how my answer changes: What would I take if I had to leave home, possibly to never return?
In the digital age, this question has changed. Of course, your phone feels like a no brainer. It's not just a vital tool for communication and general modern survival, it's also a photo album, a collection of recorded audio, and for many people a box of letters. The fact that all of this has become digitized reflects how it has become so normalized. It is something I am constantly aware of taking for granted, but often find myself at a loss as to how to preserve what I cherish most. Photos and birthday cards are easy enough to keep in a box, but what about sound?
I don't have an answer. However, it is a reminder that the ability to record voice and play it back is an incredible thing to have. It is a precious commodity to have memories recorded in the voice of those who experienced it.
This is one of the impactful things about The Other Moonshot from The LAist. We get to hear history directly, and the way it always sends a chill through my senses is something I will never get over.
This podcast, a four part series, recounts the experiences of three Black engineers working in California on the Apollo missions. Specifically those men worked on the rockets. If you want to get even deeper, these men worked on the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. If you don't know much about rocket launches, the second stage is the second hand off in the relay to get to space. It takes a lot of power and science to get off the Earth, and even more to fight its gravity to get to the moon.
This project was recorded over a few years and hosted by Joanne Higgins, is a first person account of these three men's lives as engineers working on these rockets. Charlie Cheathem, Nathaniel LeVert and Shelby Jacobs. Men from three different parts of the country, who all landed in California to become engineers for North American Rockewell. Folded neatly into an encompassing production, this podcast evokes not only the emotions of these men, our host, but of a time that is not as far away from where we see it today.
Our host, Higgins herself grew up as the goddaughter of Cheathem, their relationship adding an incredible emotional depth to this story. Sometimes talking to the most influential people in our lives, and their history, creates a stunning portrait of how much the world has changed, and how much our predecessors took on pain so we wouldn't have to.
The power of this podcast is two-fold. Of course, everyone who helped make strides like these men deserve to be remembered. However with this podcast, I find the power is deeper because we get to hear their personal retellings. There are decades in their voices, lessons and memories laced with triumph and pain. Despite being lifetimes away from the events that sharpened them into the eloquent grandfathers they are now we still hear it. Higgins recounts poignantly "sharpening only happens with abrasion". These men are a part of historical achievements, and only in recent years have been recognized for their contributions to science, but also these astounding achievements through the slog of a racist establishment.
I love space, with the hope and inspiration it can give us. President Kennedy was right that we don't do things because they are easy, we do them because they are hard. What we can achieve as a planet from reaching towards space is incredible, and if you listen to NASA's Curious Universe, you will hear how learning about space helps us learn about our own planet. To tell these stories, and to listen to them is a reflective process in science but also society. To recount these stories is a reflection on who we are, because while we do things because they are hard in science, we also do them because they are difficult in society.
Listen to The Other Moonshot below.
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