Surveyor I

Surveyor I

DURING MY THIRTY-ONE YEARS at the Kennedy Space Center I spent six of them working at what was then called Unmanned Launch Operations, or ULO; first for a two-year stint, and later on a four. I did no real work on the first two American manned space programs, Mercury...
Inside Blockhouse 26

Inside Blockhouse 26

STEPHEN PINKER, a Harvard professor and author of several popular science books (The Blank Slate being perhaps the best known) last year wrote a short but potent article discussing the ongoing clashes between science and popular culture, religion, and the humanities....
Donald A. Wollheim, DAW Books, and Me

Donald A. Wollheim, DAW Books, and Me

MOST PEOPLE ARE UNAWARE that I’m the author of the first DAW novel. The reason that fact is not well know is fairly straightforward. Don wanted to start his new line with some big names. He persuaded two of the then biggest, Andre Norton and A.E. van Vogt, to...
No Grandson on the Moon

No Grandson on the Moon

MY SIGNATURE rests on the Moon. While it contributed nothing to the American space program, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from the above. It came about this way. Shortly before John Young, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly lifted off on the Apollo 16 mission, many...