You’ve seen the film, you know the dramatic story, but meeting one of the members of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission is something else. Ken Willoughby and the Space Lectures team secured Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise as their guest of honour in Pontefract for the final weekend of October. We all came […]
A large bull fills the screen, then there’s a bucking bronco – not the sort you see at events, but a shot of a live bucking bull at a rodeo – its rider clinging on for dear life. Not the obvious first shots for a film about the last man to walk on the Moon; […]
“I would encourage you to understand that the people that made Apollo happen, are not here” says Ken Mattingly, self-effacingly. “There wasn’t an airplane big enough” he adds with a wry smile. Mattingly, command module pilot of Apollo 16 and two-time shuttle astronaut, has come to Pontefract to talk to us thanks to the hard […]
It was a wet February evening as I set out to hear British astronaut Maj Timothy Peake address a packed house at the British Interplanetary Society (BIS). Introduced as the first truly British non-commercial astronaut, a subtle smile creeps onto his face when it is mentioned that the UK government is paying for him though […]