NEWS FROM 1959 -- The Soviet Union successfully launches the Luna 1 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome, January 2. This space craft marked a number of firsts. It got close to the Moon, passing by Earth's natural satellite on January 4. Pioneer 4 - a similar NASA mission launched 3 March 1959, two months after Luna 1. This was a spacey age. It would be May 25, 1961 before President Kennedy proposed as a national goal a trip to the Moon. Nonetheless, space exploration was very much in the air at the moment my novel begins and I tried to keep this thought always in the forefront of my mind as I wrote The Merry Life of Charles Parker.