Thread by @cfishman

You can't talk about flying to the Moon in the 1960s without talking about smoking. About cigarettes.

People building spaceships smoked.
People running Moon missions smoked.
Astronauts smoked.
America smoked.

fastcompany.com/90359002/why-y…

#Apollo51

2/ Apollo was shrouded in smoke.

The MD who helped pick the first astronauts smoked.

Mission Control smelled of stale cigarettes, 24 hours a day.

One Apollo astronaut who smoked bummed a cigarette from a sailor who helped recovered him and his crewmates in the Pacific.

3/ This is #7 in the series I did last summer on the race to the Moon in the 1960s @FastCompany.

50 small moments from the incredible effort it took us to get to the Moon, leading up to the July 20, 1969 anniversary.

Those stories are perfect for this moment, too.

4/ During the 1960s — a decade of tumult and change that transformed race, politics, protest, gender, music, sex — ordinary Americans accomplished something that was impossible when they started:

They flew people to the Moon.

First 10 in series here:

fastcompany.com/section/50-day…

5/ Americans can do what we set out to do, what we determined to do.

In the 1960s, we just did it much of the time while smoking a cigarette.

fastcompany.com/90359002/why-y…

6/ If you have a few moments this Saturday evening, you should watch the video of the press conference introducing the first US astronauts.

Not only are many of the key figures smoking—the doctor who picked the astronauts, the astronauts themselves—they are doing it on TV.

7/ We tend to romanticize the 1950s & 1960s. Those Americans did great things.

But the US, & the world, are much better in so many ways than they were then, for most people.

The fact we don't blow smoke at each other anymore is just a small example.