Having grown up during the first generation of manned space exploration, with Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, it was with mixed emotions that I read Homer Hickam's "Back to the Moon." As a young man in my late teens and twenties, I loved what this country was doing in space, cheering every liftoff and landing, from Alan Shepard to Apollo 17. Hickam's novel brought it all back in its wonder, mystery, spirit of exploration, courage, idealism, love. Also, he evoked tears and regret that we today do not have the will to recreate the dreams of our forebears. He's a fine writer and was the right man for the job of telling the story of what might be yet - an American return to the Moon. For me, it was nearly an epic poem for the age of space, for the new frontier (no caps, no politics). I was thrilled by the boldness of the concept and its painstaking road to fulfillment. Literarily, Jack Medaris and Penny High Eagle, may bear no comparison to Ulysses, Achilles, Priam, and Agamemnon. Still, they were well-drawn characters in the context of a pop novel. They typify the courage, ingenuity, toughness, commitment, of what we used to call the American spirit. Minor characters , as important to the plot, as the technicians, scientists, bureaucrats, etc. were important to the real-world execution of our space efforts, are fully drawn and convincing. I'm pretty sure Mr. Hickam wrote the book as an entertainment, and not a polemic. Nevertheless, it's clear he loved the lost, lamented, manned-space era. It should also encourage America to wake up and do everything possible to start again the abandoned journey to the stars. Sadly, the far goals seem further away now than they did in the 1960's.
A absolutely enthralling book. Once you read it - yuo will want to read it again!!
