posted 03-28-2021 08:18 PM               

The documentary is just over 40 minutes in duration and (pre-Covid) took me from the Texan Hill Country and Indiana to New Mexico and even a housing estate in Dublin named for the Apollo 11 astronauts!

I focused somewhat on the Irish links to the Apollo Program — there's the 17-year-old student who went across the Atlantic to view the Apollo 17 launch in person. And what of the moon rock given to Ireland as a goodwill gesture by the United States that was forever lost in a mysterious fire in 1977?

I sat down for interviews with many figures from Apollo over the years, and you will hear from Dr Harrison Schmitt, Captain Gene Cernan, Gerry Griffin, Martha Chaffee, Lowell Grissom, and Amy Sue Bean among others.

I hope you enjoy it — below is a press release that was released in tandem with the documentary:

"Picking Up Some Dust," with its distinctive sixties feel, brings us through the triumph and tragedy of the Apollo Program — perhaps the most daring and dangerous endeavour ever undertaken.

Twelve American men walked on the surface of the Moon between 1969 and 1972, on six different landings. In 'Picking Up Some Dust', we'll hear from some of those astronauts, and too from a flight director who watched with bated breath in Mission Control in Houston waiting for "Eagle" to touch down at the Sea of Tranquillity.

There was the young Irish schoolboy who took a trip to Florida to see one of the Saturn V rockets launch to the Moon with his own eyes, and the story of the moon rock forever lost in a fire at Dunsink Observatory in Dublin.

We will be transported to the front door of Martha Chaffee, as she is informed of the tragic news that her husband and his two Apollo 1 crewmates have been killed in an inferno on the launchpad.

Through the ashes came a moment in time that will never be forgotten — a moment when the entire world, including Ireland, stood outside and looked up.

There may be no Irish tricolour just yet planted in the lunar soil, but many from this small island of ours remember where they were when Neil and Buzz took their "Giant leap for Mankind."

posted 03-29-2021 07:51 AM               

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Originally posted by Shane Hannon:
I focused somewhat on the Irish links to the Apollo Program — there's the 17-year-old student who went across the Atlantic to view the Apollo 17 launch in person...

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