The Apollo Programme; or Why We're Not Going Back to the Moon Anytime Soon

NASA scientist Richard Hoover once related a little story (I saw this years ago on a TV documentary; a Horizon, I think). He said there was a time when he used to set off to work in the mornings, and the neighbour’s dog would come yapping and running after his car, until the point he picked up enough speed to leave the dog behind. The dog (as dogs often are) was clearly very excited and agitated by the passage of Hoover’s automobile; but it was doomed to eternal frustration since its little legs could never move quick enough to catch up. But one day, out of mere curiosity, Hoover decided to give the dog what it wanted. He started driving, and when the dog came scuttling out of his neighbour’s drive he pulled to a stop and watched what the dog did. And what did it do? It reached the car, sniffed each of the four wheels in turn, lifted its leg against the driver’s-side rear tyre and relieved itself. Then it went trotting back to its home. ‘And that,’ Hoover concluded, ‘is what we did with the moon. We were so excited by the impossible chase! And then, one amazing day, we reached out impossible target. So we sniffed it, pissed on it, and moved on to other things.’