A Space History ‘Launcheon’ for Space City on May 1
Houston, April 4: The Heritage Society’s annual Houston Heritage Luncheon will relive the famous phrase “That’s one small step for man…” with keynote speaker and author Dr. Douglas Brinkley as he presents “American Moonshot: Houston and the Great Space Race”. Attendees, including NASA alumni, will also be celebrating the 55th anniversary of the moon landing and recognizing the 70th anniversary of The Heritage Society on Wednesday, May 1, at The Briar Club, on 2603 Timmons Ln.
“Dr. Brinkley, who is also a CNN historian and Grammy Award winner, will be highlighting how Houston became known as Space City,” The Heritage Society’s executive director, Alison Bell said. “We will learn how Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Clear Lake City, later named in honor of the late President Lyndon B. Johnson (a native Texan), prepared and developed for one of the longest journeys ever made.”
“It is an honor that President John F. Kennedy selected Rice Stadium to make his famous speech, ‘We choose to go to the moon…’, in September 1962,” The Heritage Society’s board president, Minnette Boesel said. “We will hear how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Manned Spacecraft Center would become the heart of the scientific and engineering community as they ramped up space exploration efforts leading up to the landing on the moon.”
“The 2024 total solar eclipse is making media and tourism history across our country, especially in Texas,” said Bell. “Compare that excitement to when the world was fixated in front of TVs in 1969 watching the mission control room in Houston as astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first weightless, bouncing step.”
The Houston Heritage Luncheon is chaired by civic leaders Lainie Gordon and David Mincberg. A long-time public servant, Mincberg most recently served as Board Chairman of Houston First Corporation. Gordon has been involved with many local non-profit organizations.
Dr. Brinkley, the author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race will be signing his book following the luncheon. A silent auction will also benefit Houston’s history museum, so The Heritage Society can continue spotlighting Houston’s history in compelling and relevant ways.
For tickets and more information, please see https://www.heritagesociety.org/houston-heritage-luncheon-2024 or contact info@heritagesociety.org.
About the Speaker:
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, CNN Presidential Historian, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He works in many capacities in the world of public history, including on boards, museums, colleges, and historical societies. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master”. The New-York Historical Society has chosen Brinkley as their official U.S. Presidential Historian. His recent book Cronkite won the Sperber Prize while The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He has received a Grammy Award for Presidential Suite and seven honorary doctorates in American Studies. His two-volume annotated “The Nixon Tapes” recently won the Arthur S. Link – Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He is a member of the Century Association, Council of Foreign Relations, and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and three children.
More about The Heritage Society: The Heritage Society, a 501 (c)(3) organization, tells the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other content. Founded in 1954 by a number of public-spirited Houstonians to rescue the 1847 Kellum-Noble House from demolition, The Heritage Society has since saved an additional nine historic buildings, moved them from various locations to join the Kellum-Noble House in Sam Houston Park, and restored them to reflect their respective eras. These ten buildings, along with the museum gallery, serve as historic reference points and exhibition spaces for more than 23,000 artifacts that document life in Houston from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s. For more information, please contact info@heritagesociety.org or see www.heritagesociety.org.