This summer marks the fiftieth anniversary of the trip that changed the world: the Apollo 11 moon landing. Texas Monthly has written about Texas’s role in the space program for decades, and our July collector’s issue combines the best of our archives with new perspectives on the final frontier.
Collection
The Space Issue
Illustration by Valero Doval
Texas History
June 25, 2019
Was Apollo 11 a Beginning or an End?
Fifty years after man walked on the Moon, mankind is still stranded on Earth. That’s not the way it was supposed to be.
News & Politics
June 25, 2019
Moon Rocks, Megabytes and Fruit Flies: Space, By the Numbers
A numerical gathering of space data.
News & Politics
June 25, 2019
A Time Line of Space Exploration
Two and a half millennia of innovation, from Archytas’s wooden pigeon to Neil Armstrong’s giant leap to Jeff Bezos’s Blue Moon.
The Texanist
May 5, 2019
The Texanist: Have Texans Played a Big Role in the Space Program?
A Dallas man knows all about the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. It’s the people he wonders about.
Liftoff
From the Archives: During the Space Race’s Early Days, Americans Dared to Do the Impossible—and Did.
America finds inspiration and salvation on the moon—and then keeps going.
Walking on the Moon
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history as the first humans to set foot on the surface of the moon. Forty years later, the researchers, astronauts, engineers, scientists, and NASA officials who made the voyage possible remember the day the Eagle landed.
She Couldn’t Go to Space Because She Was a Woman. But She Hasn’t Given Up on Her Dream.
Nearly sixty years ago, Funk and twelve other women proved that they could be astronauts too. But they never got to walk on the moon.
Read the Full Story“My whole life is divided before July 20, 1969, and after July 20, 1969. When I hear a date, my first thought is, ‘Okay, was that before or after we landed on the moon?’”
Reentry
From the Archives: After the Apollo Program Ended, NASA Settled on a New, Less Glamorous Mission
The shuttle age commences, becomes routine, and draws to a close, while Mars beckons.
Where NASA Went Wrong
The seeds of the Challenger disaster were sowed long ago, in the space agency’s conflict between its ideals and its politics.
Lust in Space
The lovesick antics of diapered astronaut Lisa Nowak are some combination of funny and sad but seemingly not revealing of anything larger, until you realize that her tragic, tabloidy breakdown says everything you need to know about NASA’s many troubles.
Relaunch
From the Archives: Can a New Generation of Texans Revive the Dream of Space Exploration?
With NASA’s ambitions trimmed, private space companies come to Texas, dreaming of Mars.
Talking With a Leader of the Next Generation of Rocketry Companies
Tom Markusic, the founder and CEO of Cedar Park’s Firefly Aerospace, explains how the next generation of rocketry companies is different from NASA—and from SpaceX and Blue Origin too.
Why Does Presidio Have One of the Best High School Rocketry Clubs in the Country?
The West Texas border town of Presidio is one of the poorest places in the state. So why does it have one of the best high school rocketry clubs in the country?