13th
Since 1972, no human has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit, a situation that makes one imagine what things might be like if, after Lindbergh’s flight, the species had contentedly gone back to making do with boats and trains…
[There have been s]pectacular unmanned probes on the order of Galileo and Cassini, yes; but where manned spaceflight is concerned, NASA currently continues on the same irresolute and unimaginative road it has traveled since Richard Nixon’s last years in the White House. The Eagle, Armstrong and Aldrin’s delicate landing craft, returned the two astronauts to Apollo 11’s command module on July 21, 1969. The springy little machine, having done its job, was then cut loose. It fell back into lunar orbit and eventually to the moon’s surface. To this day, no one knows exactly where it is.
