THINKING back to the early '60s, Reporter-Researcher Sydnor Vanderschmidt recalls the difficulties that "space journalism" had in getting off the ground: "When the space age began, it seemed that no one was prepared to interpret the developments for a general audience. The scientists used incomprehensible jargon, and a typical reporter's question was 'How in the world does that satellite stay up there?' " Since then, Syd observes, "newsmen have acquainted themselves with orbital mechanics, and the scientists have finally learned to speak English."

Assigned to TIME'S Science section for the past 13 years, Syd, like other staffers in our specialized departments, has had ample opportunity to be both pupil and teacher. She has worked on 17 cover stories, and this week's is her eleventh on space travel. Her job last week involved digesting and summarizing complex NASA flight plans, scientific studies of the moon and background dispatches from our own correspondents. After the story was written and edited, her task was to make sure that the dozens of facts and figures in it were accurate. Throughout, she kept an eye on the human details of drama and suspense that make the moon journey an adventure far beyond science and technology.

Reporter-Researcher Vanderschmidt's fascination with the drama of flight does not end in the office. Driving each weekend from their West Side Manhattan apartment to a small airstrip in the Catskills, she and her husband Tom put their knowledge of aerodynamics to the acid test by flying gliders.

Other members of our own Apollo-15 crew might be uncomfortable in a glider, but they are veterans of space coverage. Filing extensively from Cape Kennedy and Houston on the science of the flight, lunar geology, and the reactions of the crew and controllers as glitches arose, John Wilhelm, Leo Janos and James Schefter made good use of long experience on the space beat. Fred Golden, who wrote the story, has been our Science writer for two years. Don Neff, who edited the article, was TIME'S Houston bureau chief in 1968-69 and covered Apollo shots 6 through 13. At Cape Kennedy last week, Golden and Neff found the launch site's jammed press bleachers more than faintly reminiscent of a class reunion. "There's always plenty of backslapping and laughter," says Neff, "but when those rockets fire up, the oldtimers are as wide-eyed and awestruck as kids at the circus."

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