I settled for a book on space that had a lot of photos and three chapters on the Nasa missions, starting with the test pilots at Edwards Airforce base and ending with the moon landings, the last one being Apollo 17 three years ago. I think Nasa stopped going to the moon because people stopped caring about it.
I remember being in grade eight when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and they called the place they landed ‘Tranquility Base’. We had an assembly right after lunch that day and the teachers had televisions on those high rolling carts set up in the gym and we all sat cross-legged on the floor and watched shitty black and white images of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon.
But I honestly couldn’t remember Apollo 17 and I bet no one else could either. Moon missions had become as ordinary as watching the national anthems during the Stanley Cup playoffs. I wondered if the last of those astronauts got depressed because no one gave a shit about what they did. But seriously, of the billions of people in the world, only twelve had walked on the moon. That had to count for something.
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