It was forty years ago today that Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on the greatest adventure in human history.  At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1929, the giant Saturn V majestically climbed on a pillar of brilliant orange flame and disappeared into a tiny white dot in the deep blue Florida sky.  In a manner strongly reflective of our favorite movie, the three adventurers approached their epic journey much as I approach my daily captioning duties: a series of tasks to perform.  Forty years later, the space shuttle Endeavour is on its way to the International Space Station on one of the last construction missions, and one of the last flights of the venerable Space Transportation System.  As NASA’s assigned mission stands in stark contrast with its funding, I wonder where we’ll stand on Apollo 11’s eightieth anniversary.  Will we still be looking back in time at a lost future?  Or will we be looking back at the Earth from Mars?

Collin