My light non-scientific reading for the summer was Randy Pausch's popular swan-song, _The Last Lecture_. The following quote at p. 131 succintly captured, for me, the role of the Apollo program and big science in general, in the public mind: "Men first walked on the moon during the summer of 1969, when I was eight years old. I knew then that pretty much anything was possible. It was as if all of us, all over the world, had been given permission to dream big dreams." - Kurt P.S. - Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the first day that NASA began operations - that is the first day of the 1958 federal fiscal year. The other 50th NASA birthday, celebrated earlier this year, was July 29, 1958, the date that Eisenhower signed the NASA organic act. Yesterday's APOD showing the Bumper V-2 launch from Cape Canaveral July, 1950:  http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081001.html