{"id":11644,"date":"2026-05-03T08:54:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T15:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/?p=11644"},"modified":"2026-05-03T09:10:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T16:10:31","slug":"say-its-only-a-paper-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/say-its-only-a-paper-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"SAY IT’S ONLY A PAPER MOON"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis was not easy\u2026when you\u2019re out\u00a0there, you just want to get back
\nto your families and friends.\u201d \u00a0 Astronaut <\/em>Reid Wiseman<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

After a glorious spin around the moon, four astronauts aboard Artemis II splash down in the Pacific, just a few miles west of San Diego.<\/p>\n

We are glued to the live feed on my iPhone, watching this epic adventure come to a sweet splashy end.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cMy daddy would have loved this,” I exclaim to my husband and friends as we\u2019re munching chips and salsa at our favorite Mexican restaurant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My father would have turned 102 this year and was probably born\u00a0\u201clooking up.\u201d \u00a0I still remember the night he drags my mother and me outside to see \u201cthe\u00a0most amazing thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0His words, not mine.\u00a0\u00a0We wait and wait until suddenly there it is:\u00a0\u00a0A little white light creeping across the dark sky. \u00a0No\u00a0chop-chop<\/em>\u00a0sound like a helicopter. \u00a0There is no sound at all! \u00a0What is it daddy? \u00a0I\u2019m breathlessly curious and scared at the same time.\u00a0\u00a0As he answers, his rich baritone voice goes even lower and slower. \u00a0\u201cTHAT\u2026IS\u2026THE\u2026RUSSIANS.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like what?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cHow did all the Russians\u00a0get up there?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0My words, not his.<\/p>\n

The memory of that Washington D.C. evening is seared into my bones.\u00a0 It also\u00a0sets the trajectory of my father\u2019s career. \u00a0Soon after the Sputnik shocker, my aeronautics engineer-writer daddy got a gig at NASA. Apparently that Russian satellite freaked out the folks in the Pentagon too and the space race was on.<\/p>\n

He worked in public relations and my father\u2019s claim to fame was that he named the first two American monkeys that went into space (and came back). \u00a0<\/em>As the story was reported to me, scientists didn\u2019t know which monkeys would be chosen for the big show until the last minute. Were the volunteer primates jumping up and down screeching\u00a0“ME! \u00a0ME! \u00a0ME?”<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Well the point is the monkey names had to be non-gender-specific and start with the letters A and B.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s \u201ccomplicated\u201d <\/em>family lobbied for my grandfather\u2019s name (A<\/strong>be) and my mother\u2019s (B<\/strong>ernice). Well that didn\u2019t happen. Little Able and Miss Baker made the historic round trip. The in-laws were pissed\u2026as usual. My father finally threw up his hands and moved my mother and me as far away as possible \u2014 to Los Angeles \u2014 where he would spend the rest of his life in the aerospace biz. \u00a0I\u2019m a California girl because of those monkeys.<\/p>\n

🌗<\/p>\n

I got to meet the Mercury astronauts and watch a launch from Cape Canaveral. \u00a0My father and I shared a daddy-daughter passion for Gemini and Apollo. \u00a0For much of his career he worked at TRW, the company that designed and built the descent engine for the lunar landing module.<\/p>\n

Do you remember Apollo 13? \u00a0The lunar module was supposed to transport two of the guys from the mother ship to the moon\u2019s surface (and back again), but it ended up being the\u00a0lifeboat<\/em> that got all three of them safely back to earth after the infamous\u00a0\u201cHouston-We-Have-A-Problem\u201d near-disaster. Sometime later those three astronauts landed at TRW\u2019s sprawling campus in Redondo Beach, tearfully thanking the men and woman in this noble industry for saving their lives.\u00a0\u00a0My father was there too and I could tell that afternoon changed him\u2026<\/p>\n

Years later my daddy and I would head to Edwards Airforce Base in the Mohave desert for the shuttle landings. His press pass got us a better view and good seats at the follow-up press conference.\u00a0\u00a0I remember people waving their NASA-issued glow sticks at the first night landing. <\/a>\u00a0I remember cheering for Challenger\u2026the same space shuttle that would later explode on its tenth flight.\u00a0\u00a0I remember my father phoning me with the dreadful news and weeping.\u00a0\u00a0Just weeping.\u00a0\u00a0He was not a guy who cries.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All these memories are flooding back. What a mishmash of happy, sticky sadness, \u201cI-can\u2019t- believe-it-happened\u201d awe.\u00a0\u00a0Just think about the\u00a0numberless people who have worked so diligently\u00a0to put human beings \u201cup there\u201d in the first place and moon-adjacent again. \u00a0But especially I am hands-over-heart<\/em>\u00a0grateful to be my father\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n

And what made those iPhone moments at the Mexican restaurant even more special?\u00a0\u00a0I am sharing them with people I love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

🌗 🌖 🌗 🌘 🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis was not easy\u2026when you\u2019re out\u00a0there, you just want to get back to your families and friends.\u201d \u00a0 Astronaut Reid Wiseman After a glorious spin around the moon, four astronauts aboard Artemis II splash down in the Pacific, just a few miles west of San Diego. We are glued to the live feed on my iPhone, watching this epic adventure come to a sweet splashy end.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cMy daddy would have loved this,” I exclaim to my husband and friends as we\u2019re … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[268,265,53,54,271],"class_list":["post-11644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentry","tag-apollo-13","tag-daddy-daughter","tag-space-program","tag-space-shuttles","tag-sputnik"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"}],"post_tag":[{"value":268,"label":"Apollo 13"},{"value":265,"label":"daddy-daughter"},{"value":53,"label":"Space Program"},{"value":54,"label":"Space Shuttles"},{"value":271,"label":"Sputnik"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":139,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":139,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":268,"name":"Apollo 13","slug":"apollo-13","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":268,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":265,"name":"daddy-daughter","slug":"daddy-daughter","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":265,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":53,"name":"Space Program","slug":"space-program","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":53,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":54,"name":"Space Shuttles","slug":"space-shuttles","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":54,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":271,"name":"Sputnik","slug":"sputnik","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":271,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11644"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11677,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11644\/revisions\/11677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}