I missed this good news a couple weeks ago: After three months of study, NASA has rejected the utterly idiotic idea of attempting to put astronauts around the moon on the very first test flight of the Space Launch System. The New York Times story on their decision is here.

Now who’s going to put their foot down and say “No” to Mr. Musk’s plan to off a couple of billionaire tourists?

When I was eight, I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey during its Boston premiere on a huge, bowed Cinerama screen. It was April 1968, eight months before Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders flew Apollo 8 around the moon at Christmas and fourteen months before we landed. What dreams I had! I took this photo just now of the 2001 insert style poster – the paintings by Robert McCall – that’s on the wall just behind me. Sometimes I look at it and sigh a little.