James Donovan’s Shoot for the Moon, along with a plethora of other moon-landing-related books during this anniversary year, carries readers back to that more or less distant era. In brisk, workmanlike prose, Donovan details the space race from the USSR’s electrifying launch of the Sputnik satellite and the early days of the Mercury and Gemini space programs, culminating with Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind.

But then the conversation drifted to our future in space. They, too, felt that the end of the Space Shuttle program could have been a finale of sorts. But as you walk around the exhibits of the museum, you realize that there have been many near-death experiences for NASA. Those include two failed shuttle flights and the deadly Apollo 1 fire in 1967. The program always bounced back. The space veterans argued about resources. Can we go to the moon and Mars? No, and there's no real reason to return to the moon, they both agreed.