Of A Fire On The Moon - Writing and Publication

Writing and Publication

After spending time at the space center and mission control in Houston, and witnessing the launch of the colossal Saturn V rocket at Cape Kennedy in Florida, Mailer began writing his account of the historic voyage at his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts during marathon writing sessions to meet his deadlines for the magazine. His epic account, which ran to 115,000 words, was published between August 1969 and January 1970 in three long installments—A Fire on the Moon, The Psychology of Astronauts, and A Dream of the Future's Face.

In a foreword to Mailer's first installment, Life Managing Editor Ralph Graves introduced "some 26,000 words—the longest non-fiction piece Life has ever published in one issue."

The author applied his Harvard aeronautical engineering qualifications to contemplate the radical new machines being born—the moon rocket, the spacecraft, and the computer. As a writer, he meditated morally and philosophically on the relationship of the event to the modern human condition, and the times, by observation of the psychology of astronauts, engineers, NASA bureaucrats—and himself. On February 26, 1970, after the magazine series had concluded, Mailer wrote to Apollo 11 commander, Neil Armstrong, "I've worked as assiduously as any writer I know to portray the space program in its largest, not its smallest, dimension".

His account was published as a book called Of a Fire on the Moon in 1970. In the UK, it was published with its original article title, A Fire on the Moon.