UF will be looking back at America’s ventures to the cosmos 50 years after the first manned lunar landing.
Historian and author Douglas Brinkley, 58, will give an hour-long lecture on the history of the space program at 6 p.m. on April 19 in the Buddy & Anne MacKay Auditorium in Pugh Hall, said Cynthia Barnett, an Environmental Fellow in Residence with the Bob Graham Center for Public Service.
The free event is open to the public, and the room seats just over 200 people, Barnett said.
Brinkley’s speech will focus on the history of the first moon landing as well as Florida’s and the Kennedy Space Center’s influence on space travel, Barnett said. There will be a sale and signing of his book “American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race,” she said.
The speech will cost about $3,000 funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities. The Bob Graham Center for Public Service is a cosponsor for the speech, Barnett said.
Brinkley said most of his book research took place in Florida. He said the space program “put the central Florida coast on the map.”
Stories of exploration always fascinated Brinkley, he said. People spent millions of years looking up at the moon and wondering what it was like.
“The thought that, in my lifetime, we left the shackles of Earth and explored something completely unknown,” he said, “To me, it's unbelievable.”
Salvador Robles Luciano, a 22-year-old UF statistics senior, said it’s important to remember the moon landing, as it’s an integral part of American history.
“It gives the public access to a topic Floridians will be interested in,” Luciano said, “because the space program is in our backyard.”
Correction: This article was updated to reflect that the speech is funded by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities, and the Bob Graham Center for Public Service is a cosponsor for the speech. The Alligator previously reported differently.
Historian and author Douglas Brinkley will speak at 6 p.m. on April 19 in the Buddy & Anne MacKay Auditorium in Pugh Hall.
