72.24

“Caribbean Cruise Attempts to Seek Meaning of Apollo.” Article by Tom Buckley. New York Times, 12 December, 49, 53. Report on a cruise aboard the S.S. Statendam organized to observe the launch of the Apollo 17 mission and give seminars on space and humanity’s future. Mailer was joined by the following at panel discussions: Hugh Downs, narrator, Dr. Robert D. Enzmann, Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova and Robert Heinlein. Katherine Anne Porter, covering the event for Playboy, was in the audience. Mailer criticized N.A.S.A. for having "taken the most exciting event of the 20th century [Apollo 11, the moon shot] and succeeded in making it monumentally boring and profoundly depressing." See 71.1, 72.9, 73.1.