One of my first vivid memories was watching Apollo 14 or Apollo 15 on my folks old black and white telly. I was four at the time and went to school completely obsessed with the Saturn V rocket and the idea of space travel.
As I've grown older and come to appreciate the limitations of the technology of the day, I am even more in awe of the challenges the Apollo programme had to overcome to get two humans to land on the moon, and the mortal danger these individuals lived in from takeoff to landing.
I wonder if we've plateaued in our ability and willpower to put humans into space and to break new barriers in space travel. I wonder if governments could ever stomach the 1960's attitude of "throwing caution to the wind" to send humans to Mars or beyond.