Photo Post: Remembering the Space Race in Houston, Texas
Saturn V rocket A month ago I was back in Houston, Texas, for the weekend applying for a student visa at the Spanish consulate , which I need to go back to work in Spain as a language assistant for one more year. Because the Megabus schedules didn’t allow for me to leave Dallas early in the morning and return from Houston later in the day, I decided to make a city trip out of the whole ordeal and spend two nights in the local Hostelling International hostel. Third stage of the rocket I was first in line to apply for a visa at the consulate, so I ended up having more free time than I thought I would. Thankfully, I had brought my library’s copy of Alas Babylon with me, so I spent several hours in Starbucks over the course of the trip engrossed in this highly realistic account of what might have happened had the U.S. and the USSR engaged in nuclear war. Written by Pat Frank, the book trailblazed the post-apocalypse genre and was published at the height of the Cold War in...