Thank you for ‘Falling to Earth’. In common with what all of the Apollo astronauts say about their experience of their journeys to the moon and back, I find it difficult to put into words how I felt when I read your book. But I will try. I was born in North Wales, UK, in 1957 and have lived all my life with the feeling that I am myself a spacefarer. The amazing gift of the American people to the world through the vision of their government in making the first interplanetary steps into the cosmos will live forever in the spirit of humanity. That the complete archive of all of the Apollo missions is available freely to all online is a testament to President Kennedy’s vision of “New rights to be won”. I have always felt this makes us all now a spacefaring species – and I hope you have felt the thanks and support of us all for what you did.

The sadness you obviously felt regarding those first day covers is understandable given your career and personal honour code. But as a fellow human being I say this: in the grand scale of what you all did in the Apollo program for the benefit of all mankind, this issue is insignificant and will in time find its correct scale in your heroic story, as a side-note reminder that it was indeed HUMANS who travelled to the Moon with Apollo 15. Your name and those of all of your fellow Apollo astronauts will live on and be justly celebrated through the entire future of humanity as those who boldly took our first steps in our destiny to the stars.

I had the privilege to meet your fellow crew member Colonel Jim Irwin at the British Ministry of Defence in 1990, and it was a meeting which changed my understanding of what it is to be human for one reason – his eyes. There was something very different, intangible but essentially human in his eyes which has effected me ever since. I have realised over the years that it was the fact that he had seen the Earth from another world, all of humanity the size of a marble he could blot out with his thumb. It was the same unearthly look I saw in the eyes of Buzz Aldrin when I met him too, and something, as you also wrote about the opalescent blue of the oceans of our planet, which photographs cannot do justice to. I explained this feeling to Shuttle Astronaut Bonnie Dunbar when I met her years later and she agreed, and said she had also seen this in their eyes.

My point is that there is something about the scale of what you did and your experience which is deeply and primordially human, and which transcends words. We who were alive to witness your journey have a different depth in our understanding of the events to those who were not. Simply to look up at the Moon and know there were humans walking on it at that moment was an incredibly powerful, unifying feeling – that we were there together as one human family. Future generations will have no direct experience of that feeling unless we go back. Your book, and those of all of the Apollo astronauts are a vital link with this pivotal moment in human history. While reading ‘Falling to Earth’ I had the growing feeling that the story of Apollo is the greatest story ever told – inspiring, motivating, deeply moving, spiritually uplifting and essentially human. In that you have done a great service to those future generations, and I for one of those little creatures on this beautiful planet you witnessed from the Moon, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Roy Barlow.

Thank you for your book. I’ve already read many others on the space program and found yours at the local Borders when they were closing. Didn’t even know about it. Read it on my flight from Phoenix to Philadelpha. Great read, thank you for writing your side. You did a great job and I highly recommend it to others. I placed it in my office right next to “DEKE”. Thought you might like to know that!

Doug

Dave H

There is a exhibition running at the moment in a small gallery in the town of Sale, Manchester. At a visit to the gallery last week I had a look at the exhibits and was fascinated to learn of Yuri’s visit to Manchester – even more fascinated when both my Dad and his sister said that they were there,

Now that I have read your article I realise what a special occasion it must have been