That's not my department!

[sovay]

I cannot believe this statement is true:

Michael J. Neufeld, the author of "Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War" (Knopf; $35), acknowledges that "hardly anyone under age forty" knows his subject's name, even though America's moon shots owed a large measure of their success to him.
—Thomas Mallon, "Rocket Man: The Complex Orbits of Wernher von Braun."

If nothing else, doesn't anyone still listen to Tom Lehrer?

Comments

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I suppose that most people our approximate age[*] won't have read Michener's Space, which is where I met the name (thanks, random library book sale!).

* I'm under forty but not close enough to your age to say "your age." :P

[sovay]

Michener's Space, which is where I met the name (thanks, random library book sale!).

Yay, random library book sale!

Is it just that most people are no longer interested in the space program?

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

And my prev comment was supposed to say "'our age'" rather than "your" age....

I think that's part of it. Another part might be that after things are > one generation away, they fade, except amongst geeks (of the relevant flavor), fans, and info-junkies.