It happens every year. Before I actually set foot in Park City, I experience a series of Sundance ko-ink-e-dinks. Take this example: Just the other day, I was sledding with my family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, when my in-laws and their friends joined us. Among them was Donald Rockwell, a true blue rocket scientist who worked on NASA’s Polaris program. Boy, did Rocky have a firm grasp on the aerodynamics of snow (pictured). I mentioned the film In the Shadow of the Moon and my forthcoming interview at Sundance with astronaut Buzz Aldrin. As it turns out, back in the mid-1960s, Rocky and Buzz were fellow doctorate candidates at MIT’s Instrumentation Program.
Rocky went on, casually speaking about his involvement in the space and aeronautics industry, his time at MIT and, humbly, his contributions to the first successful mission to land a man on the moon. As Rocky put it, “by osmosis, we all helped with the Apollo program.” And while he did meet Buzz, he never had the opportunity to ask him how he liked his stay at The Lab. That’s a great icebreaker for when I sit down with Buzz on January 22. Now everyone else, please post your questions in the comments section for me. If not, I’ll have to resort to using my cohort Jason Silverman’s query – recall: “What did the Earth look like from the Moon?”
