via boston.com

Forty years ago tomorrow, Apollo 11 left Earth to carry three astronauts to land on the moon, and four days later man walked on the moon.

I think today the idea of man walking on the moon seems passe. After a plethora of scifi and CGI shots, it's difficult to imagine that there was a time when the world was gripped with the idea of men simply being on the moon. Certainly as someone born after this happened, I can understand that.

And as someone born after man last walked on the moon in 1972, I can understand it even more.

After all, to me, it's almost as though we've always been on the moon in some form or the other.

But we haven't been back there in over 36 years.

In that time, NASA and the space programs across the world have become to a large extent marginalized and sidelined, and space exploration no longer captures the public's imagination the way it once did.

How many people are aware that the Space Shuttle Endeavour will be launching this afternoon (weather and mechanics prevailing)? That it will be constructing the final components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's laboratory so that experiments can be conducted in the International Space Station which are directly exposed to space?

Or how many people know that Europe is currently conducting experiments to determine the psychological effects of long-term isolation on a possible manned mission to Mars?

Do many people give any thought to the time when, due to the depletion of the planet's natural resources, it won't be an effective use of energy to mine or drill for resources any more?

Or what will happen when that happens in light of the world's ever increasing population?

It's difficult today for a lot of people to think that far ahead. It's easy to get distracted by the gloomy economy, by the posturing of overseas countries, by the death of a pop star, by personal circumstance. I understand that. I do.

But as parenthood comes closer on the horizon for me, I do find myself sometimes wondering what's going to happen to the next generation, and the generation after that, who may have to confront problems with this planet that we can't even properly conceive of yet. I wonder what happens when they realize that maybe we're the generation that should have started preparing the way to other planets and other resources sooner.

I think maybe that's why I've always been a fan of science fiction in all of its many forms (well, except cyberpunk - that just annoys me). It's the hope for a better tomorrow.

Plus, you know, space if just cool.