Everyone's Gone to the Moon Book Trailer - Version 2

 I'm getting ready for the big release of my new book, "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", with the new book trailer. The book will hit both brick and mortar and online bookstores October 2023.

Everyone's Gone to the Moon Including Bowie...Sort Of

I've been reviewing the manuscript for my latest book, Everyone's Gone to the Moon (release date October 2023), to wrap up the accompanying podcast and realized just how many stories from the book I love. The book focuses on life in the month of July 1969 with an overview of news events - both famous and long forgotten, memories of what life was like during the month by every day people as well as NASA engineers and contractors, and of course, the pop-culture that influences us to this day all intertwined with little known stories about the flight of Apollo 11, our first manned lunar landing. One of my favorite stories is this little gem about David Bowie and his song, "Space Oddity":

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Astronaut Chris Hadley's Version of "Space Oddity"

Only days before the launch of Apollo 11, one of the most iconic rock songs of all time was released. Even if you didn’t like the rock music of the day, you knew the opening line of this song. Even today over almost sixty years later, kids can be heard singing, “Ground control to Major Tom.” It was the classic David Bowie recording, Space Oddity.

You can forgive people for thinking the song was about the first moon landing since it was released only five days before the launch of Apollo 11 on July 11. And in the lyrics, there is one line that sort of gives a nod to the lunar explorers when Major Tom sings, “Here as I’m floating in my tin can, far above the moon.” But that wasn’t the case. The song begins with a surreal 1969 countdown and launch before Major Tom reports all is well and eventually that he is stepping out of the door of his capsule, presumably for a spacewalk. That’s where things take a bit of a dark turn as ground control loses contact with the capsule and frantically try to regain communications.

In a 2003 interview with Performing Songwriter magazine, Bowie set the record straight saying that the song was in fact inspired by the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey which was based on the popular novel written by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark.

“I was out of my gourd anyway,” Bowie told the magazine. “I was very stoned when I went to see it [the movie] several times and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.”
Nevertheless, Phillips Records saw a marketing opportunity and released the song just prior to the Apollo launch. Despite a strong marketing campaign complete with video, the song only peaked at number five on the U.K. charts and barely made a ripple on U.S. charts coming in at #124.

As a side note, when the single was re-released in 1973, Space Oddity reached #15 in America. When it was re-released one more time in 1975 by RCA Records, it became Bowie’s first number one record.

The strong headwind Space Oddity faced in becoming a huge hit early on, at least in the U.K., was due in part to the national radio and television corporation of the British Isles, the B.B.C. At the time, the B.B.C. was virtually in complete control over what the Brits heard and saw on radio and television. When they heard the single, the company immediately banned it from the airwaves until after the flight of Apollo 11 saying that it was in “poor taste” to play it during the mission.

As the saying goes, someone didn’t get the memo about the ban and that someone decided the song would make the perfect theme music for B.B.C. TV’s coverage of Apollo 11.

“It was picked up by British television and used as the background music for the landing itself in Britain,” Bowie later recalled. “Though I’m sure they really weren’t listening to the lyric at all. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course I was overjoyed they did. Obviously some B.B.C. official said, ‘That space song, Major Tom…blah, blah, blah. That’ll be great.’ Nobody had the heart to tell the producer, ‘Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.’”

Original David Bowie Music Video of "Space Oddity"

And Reviews - Good and Crazy - Are In

Every now and then I spend a day going out to various bookseller sites to read reviews of my books. The one book that has been getting positive 4 and 5 star reviews is Space Oddities. I’m reading reviews like:

“I enjoyed this book. I found it well-written with great stories. There was some humor and I loved the author’s tone.” 

“This is not a technical history and Cuhaj does a fine job bringing out the human element…Overall, there is something for everyone who thinks they "know it all" about the space race. I highly recommend this book.”

There are a fair number of critiques that I take to heart. These are reviews that only serve to make me a better writer and I do appreciate them.

But then, there are those that just make me shake my head. Here are a few with the answers I WOULD like to reply with, but I know when to curb my Jersey sarcasm:

• “If you or someone you buy gifts for is interested in the defunct space program, give this book a read.”

Quick! Someone tell NASA! They’re defunct! Cancel the next Artemis flight!!

•  (This is an actual conversation from my website):

“This book is great. How did you write it?”

On a laptop.

“No, no! I mean, how did you write it?”

Sometimes a pen.

(No more comments on this thread.)

• “I give it one star. I purchased this from Amazon and it arrived in the mail damaged.”

Let me call Jeff Bezos for you.

•  “This book cost me $22.95. I wouldn’t pay $25 for it!”

Ok, but thank you for your $22.95. 

• “There is no way you hiked all of the trails in this book.”

You’re on to me. I’d better fess up to my family about my long weekends away and my affair with chipmunks. 

• (A reviewer comments on the story of Mobile’s Boyington Oak where legend has it, a man was unjustly hung for a murder, but before he died, he said an oak tree would grow where he was hung to prove his innocence. An oak tree did grow on the very same spot.)

“Joe, do you know how many oak trees there are in downtown Mobile? Imagine the number of acorns rolling around over the centuries.”

Ok, I can’t argue that, but are YOU going to be the one to end a 188+ year legend? Not me!

Oh, there are more, MANY more. I'd better get back to reading them, and just shake my head.

 

 

 

Oh, The Possibilities

 

With storm clouds on the horizon for yet another "weather alert" day, my mind is wandering with a bajillion possible writing projects being yanked from the filing cabinet in my brain. I've had positive responses from a couple publishers about my proposed non-fiction WWII history manuscript, "GI Jive", and my short story collection, "A Fig Newton of My Imagination", but as I sit here and wait for the official go ahead, I'm pondering other possible projects. 

The Alabama Gulf Coast has seen an incredible rise in the number of hiking trails and walking paths over the past few years. Since my PKD has been keeping me from doing any long hikes right now, I may research the possibility of authoring a new trail guide to those nice, shorter but just as fascinating and beautiful hikes. 

I've also been reading a lot of mysteries again. Just finished the latest Miss Fisher mystery by Kerry Greenwood, "Death in Daylesford." Great read. Probably 10+ years ago I wrote a mystery that takes place in Mobile, Alabama during WWII at a local radio station. The characters were based on people I knew in my radio days. They get killed off one by one. LOL! It's fiction, people! Anyway, a publisher loved the first two chapters, wanted to review the rest (which I hadn't quite finished yet), and I was pushed into completing it. Basically from chapter 3 on it was trash. I think I may revisit that one. 

So many options and if you know me, I'll tackle them all at once. :)

More Space Oddities Reviews

 

I'm pleased to see that my book, Space Oddities: Forgotten Stories of Mankind's Exploration of Space continues to receive glowing reviews. Here's the latest by Edward Journey on the Alabama Writer's Forum website:

Click HERE for review.

New Book Trailer Released

 

The first book trailer for my new book that will be out in October, Everyone's Gone to the Moon: July 1969, Life on Earth, and the Epic Voyage of Apollo 11, has dropped. There are so many great stories from that month - both little known and forgotten global events and personal stories by average people, NASA employees and contractors, that I couldn't possibly put them all in this 2 1/2 minute video. Version one is ready for viewing. Note: This is a YouTube video so you may be asked by Facebook to go to an outside link. Enjoy! I can't wait until all of you get the chance to read it when it's released.

View the trailer by clicking this link.

Space Oddities: The Interview

 

My book, Space Oddities, was released September by Prometheus Books, an imprint of Roman & Littlefield (R&L). At the time, I did an interview with R&L's magazine, Rowman Now, introducing the world to the book and was supposed to get a copy. Well, you know how that goes. Somewhere it got lost in the sauce and it was only today that I accidentally found a copy online. I think the interview went pretty well shedding light on the concept behind the book, my writing style, and a little bit of my personality. Here it is or you can read the copy along with an excerpt from the book by clicking THIS LINK (it starts on page 14.)

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The R&L Space Oddities Interview:

NOW:
Could you sum up Space Oddities in one sentence?

Cuhaj:
Space Oddities tells the unknown, offbeat, and obscure stories of spaceflight, bringing the human side of man’s greatest adventure to life.

NOW:
At the start of Space Oddities, you write eloquently about your earliest memory of witnessing space travel on television. Is this a project you’d been planning – consciously or otherwise – for a long time?




Cuhaj:
I guess you could say it has been in the planning stages for many years. I just didn’t know it. I would read or hear many of these stories over the years and tuck them away in the back of my mind. It wasn’t until I had finished writing another book on the history of the town and area I currently live in – Mobile, Alabama – that I realized just how much I love history and writing about it.

When writing that book which became Hidden History of Mobile, I found myself gravitating to obscure stories found in the city’s early newspapers that have been long since forgotten. Tales about everyday life here in the Port City – the struggles and humorous anecdotes that made the city what it is. The book went from a stodgy old history book with “this happened on this date”, to retelling those lost tales, the human side of city’s history that has been lost for years.

That got me thinking about those odd and obscure space stories I had heard and my love of the space program. I told a couple of the stories to some friends in casual conversation just to see what their reaction would be, and it was what I had hoped for: “There should be a book about that!”

And now there is.

NOW:
You note at the start of the book that you’re not ‘your standard rocketry nerd’, instead being drawn to the ‘stories behind the story'. You seem, in your writing, more interested in the human side of the space race. Why do you think this is?

Cuhaj:
When I was a kid, I used to love getting up at 2am and pull out my dad’s portable radio that had shortwave bands on it. I would tune in to radio stations from around the world. Every station would start the broadcast with the news, but for most stations, that was sheer propaganda, but after that, they would air shows focusing on the country’s history and culture. That fascinated me – hearing first-hand how people lived, their beliefs, their history from various parts of the world.

That side of life fascinates me. There are so many people who contribute to our life that go unseen, their stories untold. They all have a story to tell. We all know the headlines, but what – and who - went into making that moment?

NOW:
The level of detail you profile oft-forgotten space race figures in is remarkable. How difficult did it prove to research the score of individuals you’ve written about? Presumably, you had to consult numerous archives and sources.

Cuhaj:
It was remarkably easier than you might think. The NASA history department is incredible, documenting every little detail of every mission ever flown, preserving interviews with astronauts and engineers. A lot of material was pulled from video interviews preserved by NASA, C-SPAN, and the Library of Congress.

I can’t tell you how many times I will be watching television or flipping through our cable provider’s guide on the TV and hear or see something that would grab my attention. It could be a simple word, a phrase, but it was always something that related to what I was writing about. I would jot it down then off I would go to research it, heading down the rabbit hole to find books (I built quite a library), videos, audio, a treasure trove of sources to build the story upon.

NOW:
There are some hilarious anecdotes and stories in the book. Do you have any favourites? Are there any that narrowly missed the cut or couldn't be included for other reasons?

Cuhaj:
Oh, yes. There are many more stories that just didn’t fit into the pages of Space Oddities. In fact, I am currently completing a 10-part podcast series to tell a few of these stories that, if I finally finish producing them, will debut March 14th. More details to come.

One that stands out deals with the handling of the lunar samples brought back by the Apollo missions. There was a real fear that there could be organisms in the samples that could contaminate and endanger life on Earth. Special precautions and facilities were established to quarantine the astronauts and samples and protect the planet.

After Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had issues with NASA’s plan to keep the Earth safe. According to the astronauts, lunar dust would cling to everything so dusting off the moon walkers before entering the command module for the return trip home was virtually impossible so one would think that it would get into the capsule. After splashdown, when Navy SEALS opened the capsule, presumably those organisms would escape into the atmosphere.

The astronauts would then don special protective suits with respirators before hopping into a life raft. Before getting on board the helicopter that would transport them to the recovery ship, the SEALS would take rags and disinfectant and scrub the astronauts down. The rags would then be tied to a weight and tossed into the ocean. Now the moon organisms would contaminate the ocean.

Later when scientists were examining the samples, one researcher ground up a piece of moon rock and was injecting the material into eggs. Don’t ask me why. I’m a writer not a scientist. Anyway, the hypodermic needle with the material the researcher was using slipped off the egg puncturing her glove and injecting her with the material. She was the first person vaccinated with lunar dust. After quarantining, it was determined that the material had no effect on humans.

NOW:
I particularly enjoyed the sections raising serious ethical questions concerned with the space race. Where do you stand on the recruiting of German rocket scientists to lead American rocket efforts after WWII?



Cuhaj:
That is a complicated question, about as complicated as the man who led the scientists, Werhner von Braun. We are all grateful that his team launched the west’s first satellite, put our first man in space, and landed us on the moon giving the U.S. unprecedented technological prestige and which resulted in many benefits through spinoffs for all of us. He also supported the effort to desegregate NASA facilities.

But then there is that war record. Their dream was to always use rockets to explore space and eventually send a man into space but developing rockets for the NAZI’s and building them with slave labor from POW camps with a blind eye. That’s where it gets complicated. I can see where it was a means to the end for the rocket scientists, but at what cost?

Again, a very complicated question.

NOW:
Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth, receives her due in the book. However, the chapter also covers myriad other animals who achieved aviation firsts. Why do you think Laika captured the world’s imagination so much, to the degree that she's still widely remembered today?

Cuhaj:
While it was an incredible feat to send a live animal into space and orbit the Earth, I think Laika is mainly remembered today because of her tragic death. There was no plan by the Soviet’s to bring her back alive. A horrible death that could have been prevented.

NOW:
John F. Kennedy's longstanding offer of a joint space venture with the USSR is very surprising to a modern reader. Do you think there was ever any realistic chance that could happen?

Cuhaj:
I don’t believe so. The Cold War was getting chillier. The Soviets believed that they were ahead in the space race and that their technology was far more advanced than the U.S. While there were some narrow agreements reached, I believe that an actual joint manned mission was possible in the 1960s.

NOW:
Your book touches on an interesting point: that congress had substantially slashed the Apollo missions’ funding even before the first moon landing. What factors contributed to this, do you think?

Cuhaj:
You must remember the time we were living in, what was happening across the country at the time: civil rights battles were being waged; the war in Vietnam was raging on; poverty was ravaging the country. Those in Congress had enormous pressure on them to address these issues. As it was becoming clear that the U.S. would reach President Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon, even before the first landing occurred, these Earthbound issues had to be conquered and re-directing funding was the answer.

At the same time, though, it seemed like the politicians could not see beyond the immediate. Space exploration, with its promise and hope for a better life here on Earth, seemed to escape them. To me, it almost looked like they had the attitude of, “ok, we land on the moon. That’s the end of it.”

It’s good to see they eventually came back around.

NOW:
Your writing is effective at humanizing those who participated in space missions. Do you have a favourite of the individuals profiled in the book?

Cuhaj:
Thank you for that. There isn’t any one favorite from the book overall. There are too many.

For astronauts, Wally Schirra stands out. After writing the book I had a newfound respect for him. I knew everyone called him a “jokester”, but I didn’t know how deep his sense of humor went until I started digging deeper. He was quite a funny guy but when it came to a mission, he was dead serious. In the first flight of the Apollo capsule after the Apollo 1 fire, he made sure that the entire flight of Apollo 7 was by the book. There would be no deviations from the flight plan even when Mission Control tried to add new items to their checklist.

Another name that comes to mind after writing Space Oddities is former NASA administrator Thomas Paine. His meeting with civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy just before the launch of Apollo 11 and his words with the reverend were heartfelt and sincere and really touched me.

NOW:
The “In the Event of Moon Disaster” document in the Nixon archives is incredibly detailed, making the thought of Apollo 11’s failure very palpable. What do you think the mission’s legacy would be today had Armstrong and Aldrin died on the moon’s surface?

Cuhaj:
The U.S. came back from the tragic Apollo 1 fire to eventually land the first men on the moon, but I don’t know how you come back from something like that. I imagine that eventually, years later, we would probably regroup yet again and make a successful landing and return. We are like that – tenacious, but it would take quite a while before NASA and the public could move forward.

Imagine looking up at the moon every night, knowing that two men from Earth will be there for ever more. It’s a chilling vision.

NOW:
If you were an astronaut flying a mission, what would your preferred wake-up call song be, and who would perform it?

Cuhaj:
Good question. My first thought was about my old band that started in high school and still get together every few years and record a song or two just for fun. I could see my bandmates writing a special song for the occasion. They’ve done that in the past and surprised me. I would love that.

But thinking about a true wake-up song, it would have to be the classic Beatles’ song, Penny Lane. That song always reminds me of a small town in northern New Jersey where I grew up. The main street through town had the same vibe to it as the song conveys. I had great times there growing up. Now, if you could get Paul McCartney to perform it for me…

NOW:
Where do you stand on the recent trend of billionaires launching their own space race? I'm sure there'd be more than few outlandish stories to mine for a future book...

Cuhaj:
I have mixed feelings about billionaires in space. On one hand, I see it as a publicity stunt. Jeff Bezos is sending celebrities into space to get media attention. While I think it’s great that one of the Mercury 13, Wally Funk, finally had a chance to fly, “Captain Kirk” (William Shatner) finally made it to space, and the daughter of the first American astronaut Laura Shepard Churchley, followed in her father’s footsteps, it’s a dangerous business that has very little, if any, regulations and isn’t something to play around with.

On the other hand, isn’t that how the airline industry began? Once the airplane first took wing, inventors built upon the technology one step at a time. To make that happen, they needed public support. The more outlandish a test flight was, the better chance that the media would cover it and if it was successful, the chances of gaining financial backing increased.

To get more exposure, celebrities would take a seat on these flights and the aircraft company would gain even more exposure and more backers. Millionaires would buy seats on flights helping to ensure money was coming in to fund further research.

I guess we’ll have to see how it plays out and hope that all necessary precautions are taken to prevent a tragic accident which could set getting civilians regularly into space back years.

NOW:
If you could be involved in any space mission, which would you pick and why? What role would you want to fulfil?

Cuhaj:
Personally, I’m not as interested in going to the moon and Mars as I am in orbiting the Earth. I have heard so many astronauts return from their first flight into space talk about the awe-inspiring view of the planet far below and the realization of how fragile it really is that I would love to experience that feeling. Just look at the reaction actor William Shatner had to his short 15-minute flight on the New Shepard spacecraft in 2021.

I’d be happy with spending some time on the International Space Station as a journalist or writer to document life aboard the ISS from the perspective of an average person. When I was in radio broadcasting, I applied for NASA’s Journalist in Space program during the space shuttle years but never heard back. Maybe one day.