I posted this a couple of years ago. I thought I’d drag it out and update it.
On this day at 02:56 UTC 45 years ago, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to leave one of these on the surface of another astronomical body. Three years and five months later, Eugene Cernan became the last man to do so, so far.
The last Space Shuttle touched down for the last time on this day three years ago.
Elon Musk of PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX fame has said that the impetus behind the development of SpaceX came when his son asked him, “is it really true that they used to fly to the moon when you were a boy?”
Now there are two-dozen or more private space ventures around the world. There is a plan to capture and retrieve an asteroid for commercial purposes. At least two companies want to mine the moon. A proposal to colonize not Mars, but Venus has been proposed, and it actually makes better sense.
If we can just hold it together for a couple more decades, humanity might get off this rock, and we might do it in my lifetime.
But it’s still not looking too good.