Forty-one years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the moon. Less inspiring is today's Atlantic piece by D.B. Grady, lamenting the aimlessness and drift that have overcome the American space program:
NASA is expensive and produces few results because we start and cancel our most audacious and inspiring plans midway through. The executive and legislative branches, in essence, shovel tax dollars by the billion into the fiery blast of a shuttle that never leaves the launch pad. This interruption exhausts and bewilders scientists and engineers who devote themselves to projects almost certain to be scratched, or victim of overwhelming mission creep. And it frustrates a public tired of waste and losing interest in the final frontier.
(Flickr/NASA)
