Back in 1971, a rented motorhome made it possible for at least one family to watch Apollo 15 launch and make its way to the Moon.
“In July 1971, my parents rented a Winnebago — a monstrous recreational vehicle — and the whole family piled in so we could road trip down to Cape Canaveral,” writes Phil Plait, the creator of the Bad Astronomy.com, in his blog on Discover Magazine.com
“I can still picture the mighty Saturn V as it punched upward. It was magnificent, and even at the age of six I had some idea of what this all meant. I stood there, clutching the little scale model rocket my parents bought me on the KSC tour in one hand, and the blue plastic figurine of an Apollo astronaut standing on the Moon I had in the other. I still remember bringing that plastic model to school for show-and-tell when we got back home,” writes Plait.
“That memory of the launch is a powerful one for me even today, all these years later. I asked my dad years later what motivated him and mom to pack the whole family up into that RV and take us down there. He replied that it was something he thought we should all see. It was history being made in front of us, and not something you get a chance to see very often.”
Read Plait’s full article here.
Photo: Phil Plait is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. Source: Discover Magazine.com
