The Martian (2015)

Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Chiwetel Ejiofor

I do love edge-of-your-seat science fiction. Recent years have produced such films as “Gravity” and “Interstellar,” both of which I consider to be modern technical masterpieces. I also love it when a seemingly past their prime director like Ridley Scott can surprise us with something truly special. This is what he’s done with 2015’s “The Martian,” Scott’s best work since “Blade Runner.”

I sincerely hope that, by the time I’m at or around 50 years of age, we’ll have learned how to send manned missions to Mars. Going by the the timeline of “The Martian,” we will! It’s the year 2035, and the crew of the Ares III is 18 Martian solar days (sols) into their planned 31-sol mission. Plans change when a dust storm forces a more hasty exit. During the course of this storm, astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is hit by debris and knocked well beyond anything resembling a line of sight. Unable to locate Watney, communicate with him or even establish that the man is still alive, his crew make the hard choice to leave without him.

All is not lost. It turns out that Watney survived the storm, and that the reason why his vital signs were undetectable was due to a jagged piece of antenna which had pierced clean through his biomonitor and caused a rather nasty gash that required medical attention.  As Watney begins to reason what needs to happen in order for him to survive, he calculates how long it will take before his food supply runs out. As luck would have it, Watney is a botanist and is thus able to create a makeshift farm using human excrement for soil, water derived from rocket fuel, and potatoes in storage for a Thanksgiving meal that’s decidedly no longer on the schedule.

Meanwhile, a dilemma of a different kind emerges once NASA, after reviewing satellite photos from Mars, comes to the realization that Watney still lives. Quickly, attention is drawn to the crew of the Ares III. To put it mildly, mission director Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean) feels that it would be irresponsible of them not to inform the crew, who are still en route back to Earth. Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), the Director of NASA, overrules Henderson and prioritizes the completion of the mission. When it becomes necessary (not to mention possible) to explain all this to Watney, he’s not well pleased. A few f-bombs later, Watney insists that the crew be made aware that he’s alive. Sanders relents.

You know that, as soon as anyone dares to utter such fateful words as “assuming nothing goes wrong,” something inevitably WILL go wrong, and it does. First, Watney’s potato crop is destroyed in an accident. Next, the unmanned supply ship meant to restock Watney’s food rations explodes shortly after takeoff. Desperately running out of time and options, NASA secretly negotiates with the Chinese for use of one of their probes. A plan is devised which would involve the Ares III crew using the Chinese probe to instead resupply their ship so that they can have enough provisions when they slingshot around the Earth for a return trip to Mars to rescue Watney themselves. Sanders, a pragmatic man who is not keen on the idea of risking six lives to save one, rejects the plan. However, Henderson sends the plan to the crew anyway. They are unanimously for it, and get to work right away.

That things will turn out okay is no real spoiler and in fact should be expected. It would be cruel to string the audience along for not quite two and a half hours only to have the story end tragically. What’s important is whether the journey is entertaining. Boy, is it ever! The cast is (inter)stellar. Matt Damon is really good at playing stranded astronauts, having done so in Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” …which also co-starred Jessica Chastain. Here, Chastain plays the Ares III mission commander Melissa Lewis, whose 1970’s music collection it is that makes up most of the film’s soundtrack as the only music on hand for Watney to listen to while on Mars. With a particular nod to disco, the songs are often relevant to the situation at hand.

“The Martian” is also a visual treat. The scenes on Mars are all completely believable. To the untrained eye, it looks as though Matt Damon has actually filmed his scenes on the fourth planet of the solar system. I enjoy these parts of the movie so much that I liken it to a good dream, one which cannot reasonably last as long as I want it to. As good as “Interstellar” and “Gravity” are, “The Martian” is that much greater  and really speaks well for the future of the science-fiction genre at-large. I can only hope, when we do finally send men to Mars, that it will be within my lifetime and that it will be an awe-inspiring, routine (i.e. incident-free) mission.

Gravity (2013)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Manned spaceflight: Still the safest way to travel. Aside from the tragic losses suffered through various training exercises, as well as the missions which encountered problems but still ended with the crew returning home to Earth safely, only four manned space missions have resulted in fatalities. That’s two Russian/Soviet missions (Soyuz 1 & 11) and two American missions (Challenger, STS-51-L and Columbia, STS-107), all of which failed at either the launch or re-entry portions of the expedition. When you consider the finite separation there is on a space vehicle between its occupants and the vacuum of outer space, it’s incredible that more terrible tragedies have not taken place. That’s a credit not only to the brave men and women who’ve climbed into these spacecraft for the last five decades, but also to the people who build the damn things (even though certain lapses in the latter have been the direct cause of at least one or two of the four disasters). So, when I say that the events of the movie “Gravity” may seem a little far-fetched, I say so only because such a sequence has not happened yet.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) picked a hell of a time to go on her first space shuttle mission, STS-157 on board the Space Shuttle Explorer. While outside the space vehicle on a routine spacewalk to make adjustments to the Hubble Space Telescope, Stone, soon-to-be retiring Mission Commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and one other crew member are encouraged to abort their mission and return to the ship for immediate re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. It seems the Russians have accidentally destroyed one of their own satellites, and the resulting debris field is headed in the Explorer’s path. Unfortunately, the shuttle does not get out of the way in time. The Hubble Telescope and the Explorer are destroyed, and Stone and Kowalski are all that’s left of the Explorer crew.

Because the debris field has also taken out other communication satellites, all contact with Mission Control in Houston, Texas, has been lost. Stone and Kowalski truly are on their own. After about the half-hour mark, as the result of a self-sacrificial command decision made by Kowalski (one which, after you’ve seen it and thought about it, makes very little logical sense), Stone is the last surviving member of the Explorer crew. Hope for Dr. Stone lies in reaching the International Space Station, climbing aboard the remaining Soyuz capsule and using it to get home. But the capsule has been rendered unsafe for re-entry, and can only be used as a means for reaching the Chinese space station, Stone’s last option for survival. It’s pretty slim margin for error but, for someone in her position, even a small chance is better than none at all.

Watching “Gravity,” I couldn’t help but think of “Cast Away” starring Tom Hanks. Both movies are centered around characters who’ve been stranded with a slim chance of survival, and only through the merest fraction of luck do they manage to survive long enough to form a plan of escape back to civilization/Earth. Both also rely on the performance of a single actor to carry the majority of a film. Except for a very brief moment towards the end, Sandra Bullock is the only person on-screen in “Gravity” for its final sixty minutes. As in “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock proves with her compelling performance in “Gravity” that you can’t, in fact, cast just anyone in the role. The other star of this film is its special effects, which are astonishing, if sometimes dizzying. On that note, I would argue that Alfonso Cuarón more than earned his Academy Award for Best Director.

“Gravity” has earned genuine praise among many former NASA astronauts. It has also drawn the wrath of certain nitpickers in the scientific community. Based on the Kessler syndrome, a theory posited in 1978 by the NASA scientist of the same name, it presents a disaster scenario that feels much more grounded in reality than some other, similarly themed movies. Regardless of how seriously one takes the “science,” it’s a movie, first and foremost, and should be treated as such. I find myself making this same argument often, but it makes it no less true. Even as its characters’ oxygen runs desperately thin, the movie’s entertainment supply knows no bounds.

Interstellar (2014)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin (voice), Michael Caine, Ellen Burstyn, Mackenzie Foy

If there’s one thing I truly envy my parents’ generation for, it’s that they were the ones who got to witness firsthand the beginnings of manned space exploration. Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been fascinated by the endless possibilities of what’s “out there.” But, with the US space program largely placed on the shelf, the chances of manned expeditions to Mars or beyond taking place within my own lifetime grow smaller with each passing day. That’s where science fiction steps in. We can go on these odysseys without ever leaving the comforts of our homes or movie theaters. The trouble there is sifting through all of the crap to get that sense of awe and wonder that should always come with stories like this. A lot of the time, it’s just going to be a larger-than-life action movie. Few science fiction films ever make the attempt to challenge our minds, or even inspire a sense of awe and wonder. Quite possibly the last one to truly accomplish this was 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” However, most sci-fi fans will agree, when prompted, that 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is the standard-bearer of this type of motion picture. Count director Christopher Nolan among them.

As we join things in progress at the beginning of “Interstellar,” we find that the Earth is in deep doo-doo. A blight has claimed most of the world’s crops and reduced the human population, and it seems destined to finish the job sometime in the not-too-distant future. Heavy dust storms have become a regular occurrence. Former NASA astronaut Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) runs a farm with his father-in-law, Donald (John Lithgow), son Tom and 10-year old daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy). Cooper would much rather be flying in the skies or the stars than attending PTA meetings with Murphy’s teachers, who insist the Moon landings were propaganda films. They’re lucky that Buzz Aldrin isn’t in the room, or he’d be arrested for murder. Murphy’s a smarter young lady than the idiots who run the school give her credit. She’s currently tracking a “ghost” in her room, one which appears to be sending messages using binary code. I put the word “ghost” in quotations because this is a science-fiction tale, not a supernatural horror movie. Many who watch this movie will have figured out the true nature and identity of this phenomenon as soon as the word “ghost” is even uttered, although the movie won’t reveal that card outright for another two hours. That’s okay.

It turns out that the messages being sent by Murphy’s “ghost” are coordinates. Together, the father/daughter team discover that the coordinates lead to a secret NASA base, headed by Professor Brand (Michael Caine). The Professor tells Cooper of a plan to ensure the survival of humanity, involving relocation on a new planet. NASA has sent “Lazarus missions” to three planets in orbit around a black hole on the other side of a wormhole they’ve discovered near Saturn. The hope is that one of these three worlds will be found to be hospitable enough for humankind to start a new colony there. Along with a crew that includes the Professor’s own daughter, Amelia (Anne Hathaway), Cooper is asked to pilot the Endurance, the craft that will fly out to collect the “Lazarus missions” data and find out which of these planets, if any, is our last best hope.

Even with the advantages presented by the wormhole, the disadvantage is that everyone back home will age at a far faster rate than those on board the Endurance. Each hour the crew spends on one of the three distant planets will equal roughly seven years back on Earth. Amelia’s father will die while she’s in another galaxy. Cooper’s children will grow old and have children and grandchildren of their own. As Murphy ages, she will be played by three different actresses: Mackenzie Foy (age 10), Jessica Chastain (young adult), and Ellen Burstyn (senior citizen). It should be obvious from the get-go, but Murphy’s role in the progression of the plot will prove to be just as pivotal as that of her father, if not more so.

The acting in this movie is quite superb. Much of that is thanks to the caliber of the talent, as there are quite a number of previously Academy Award-winning and/or nominated actors present, among them McConaughey, Caine, Hathaway, Chastain, Burstyn and Matt Damon (as a screenwriter). Even the voiceover work from Bill Irwin and Josh Stewart is reminiscent of Douglas Rain’s performance as the HAL 9000 computer from “2001,” as they are meant to be. Irwin and Stewart portray the artificial intelligence crew members TARS and CASE, each of whose solid black rectangular structure makes them resemble the Monoliths from “2001.” But it may be little Mackenzie Foy who gives the best performance of them all.

More than the characters or the plot, what I find is most stunning about “Interstellar” is the visuals (surprise, surprise). Any time the scene shifts back to the dust bowl that Earth has been reduced to, I wait for the return to the stars. Each of the three worlds the Endurance crew visits, having been named for the scientists originally sent there, couldn’t be any more different from one another. The first is a world composed of water for as far as the eye can see. This one will destroy any spacecraft that lands there and lingers for too long, shattering its hull with immense tidal waves. Surf’s up! One of the remaining two had better be suitable for our needs, or we’re screwed. You know the second planet they visit isn’t going to work out, or else “Interstellar” would be about an hour shorter than it is.

There was a moment where I was scared that the movie was going to degenerate into just another “blow shit up” action movie, and it very nearly could have. Much of the plot is familiar territory. You can almost count the moments leading up to the scene where one character reveals their cowardice and betrays the group. This was the only part of the plot I got wrong, as I had misjudged who the person would turn out to be. But given that “Interstellar” is Christopher Nolan’s tribute to all the science-fiction films which have made a lasting impact on him, he has presented us with the kind of science-fiction movie I would hope to make if I were in his position. It’s also the first time since I saw “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” that I’ve felt transported to another world, and saddened once the adventure came to a close. I finally understand what my father has been talking about all these years when he says that “2001: A Space Odyssey” begs to be seen in the theater. “Interstellar” is that same kind of experience, immersing you in all of its beauty and inspiring that sense of awe and wonder that sci-fi fans crave.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Director: Robert Wise

Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins

After three years on NBC, the original “Star Trek” TV series was cancelled in 1969 due to poor ratings. Whether you can attribute this to the fact that the third season is full of sub-par episodes, or that the show had been moved to the 10 o’clock spot on Friday nights (where all programs are sent to die), this would have signaled the end for any normal TV series. Good thing “Star Trek” isn’t normal. By the early 1970’s, reruns of the show were catching on, and in a very big way. It took a few years, but an idea as to how to capitalize on the newfound popularity of the show was finally settled upon. At first, there were several movie ideas tossed around. When nothing stuck, it was decided that a new TV show might be the way to go.

All the early development was in place, and casting decisions had been made. Not returning for the new series would be Leonard Nimoy as Spock. The lovable half-Vulcan, half-human science officer would instead be replaced by a full-blood Vulcan named Xon (actor David Gautreaux, who plays the Commander of the ill-fated Epsilon 9 space station in “The Motion Picture”). It’s impossible to know what effect this change would have had on the show and the loyal fans of “Star Trek” who would tune in, because “Star Trek: Phase II” was abandoned in 1977 before it ever came into being. The undeniable success of science-fiction on the big screen that year, thanks to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Star Wars,” renewed the interest in making a “Star Trek” movie, with Nimoy once again a part of the cast. Thus, the pilot episode for “Star Trek: Phase II,” to have been entitled “In Thy Image,” was expanded to become “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

An alien vessel of unknown origin and unknown intentions enters our quadrant of the galaxy. The only thing that is known for certain about it is that it will respond to any actions it deems hostile with deadly force, and that it is on a direct heading for Earth. In what is by far the silliest moment of the movie, the Enterprise (still in the final stages of a refit) is referred to as being the only ship in interception range. This line underscores one of two things: either the writers were desperate for a way to beef up the Enterprise’s importance (unnecessary… it’s the ENTERPRISE!) …or, Earth’s confidence in its’ own defense systems is so high in the 23rd century that we have only one starship to guard us at any given time. Clearly, it’s the former.

In the time since the end of the Enterprise crew’s five-year mission (we must assume they had two years worth of other adventures after the TV show’s cancellation), the cast of characters has become scattered. Kirk (William Shatner) is now an Admiral, trading the Captain’s chair for one behind a desk at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco. Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) has gone into semi-retirement, enough time to grow a Grizzly Adams beard. Spock, meanwhile, returned to his home planet of Vulcan to undergo the Kolinahr discipline, intending to purge himself of all emotions. But Spock, like the rest of the Enterprise crew, is drawn in by the consciousness he senses from the mysterious alien, and leaves Vulcan with a new purpose.

It is “purpose” which is the movie’s main theme. Spock finds his in the exploration of the unknown onboard the Enterprise. The alien, which we come to know as V’Ger, questions its own purpose in life, and believes the answer lies in tracking down its creator. In its own way, V’Ger is searching for God. Commander Decker (Stephen Collins) loses direction when his command of the Enterprise is taken by Kirk, his immediate predecessor who had recommended him for the post, and never ceases in reminding Kirk how upset he is. Further complicating things is the appearance of his old girlfriend, Ilia (Persis Khambatta), who is the Enterprise’s new navigator.

Admiral Kirk’s own journey also involves a reunion with his first love: the Enterprise. Take the scene where he and Scotty (James Doohan) ride the shuttlepod to dock with their starship. Seeing ‘her’ again for the first time in over two years, Kirk gazes upon the Enterprise as if to say, “You may look different, but you’re still my girl.” Admittedly, this is a scene that goes on longer than it probably should, but it does help drive home the point that this is an almost totally new Enterprise from the one seen in the TV show. There are actually several long scenes of the actors staring at things that aren’t really there, and that’s part of what has caused “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” to draw a lot of negative criticism over the years. Some, who subscribe to the “odd numbered ‘Trek’ movies suck” theory, would say that the “curse” started here. I can’t say I agree. Besides, most of those same people loved 2009’s “Star Trek,” the J.J. Abrams reboot of the franchise. Technically speaking, that one is #11, so that busts the “curse” right there.

The original version of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” always felt a bit unfinished. In particular, the 1983 cut made specifically for ABC (which used to air late evening movies on a fairly regular basis) gives the impression of something haphazardly pieced together. Several scenes were added which director Robert Wise had never intended to be a part of the finished film. A few years before his death, the former two-time Oscar-winning director (for “West Side Story” and “The Sound of Music”) got the chance to fix some things he didn’t like about “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” The resulting 2000 Director’s Cut is a superior work. It’s not among my most favorite “Star Trek” movie, though if you were to break the series into three groups of four, it would be the leader of the second set. I would also argue that it is the one “Star Trek” movie which is aging the most gracefully. If the musical score sounds familiar, it should. Anyone familiar with “Star Trek: The Next Generation” will recognize the main theme immediately.

Inevitably, there will be a 13th “Star Trek” movie. It’s just a question of when. As much as I have enjoyed all but one of these movies over the years, I grow weary of the same tired plot involving loss, revenge and big space battles. I’d like to see the series return to what defined “Star Trek” in the beginning, the seeking out of new life forms & new civilizations, perhaps encountering a little trouble along the way (because SOME drama is required), but not the kind of trouble that requires phasers and photon torpedoes to blow shit up. While “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” may not look like the TV show, nor carry with it the light-hearted tone that made that show so popular, it remains the closest cinematic representation.

Apollo 13 (1995)

Director: Ron Howard

Starring: Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, Kathleen Quinlan

As a small boy, there were two subjects which interested me above all other things. One was dinosaurs and the other, thanks in large part to “Star Trek,” was outer space. I always got a kick out of looking up at the stars through my telescope. I loved reading about the planets of our solar system and their moons, and the history of our world’s space program was particularly fascinating. Cut to the first launch of a manned space mission that I ever witnessed. The day was January 28, 1986. Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, it was the day the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, only to explode just 73 seconds into its flight. All seven crew members were killed, including Concord, New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Mind you, I was not in Cape Canaveral on that day, but rather I was sitting in my parents’ living room in Knoxville, Tennesee, my father by my side. The very first exposure I had to a live television broadcast of Man traveling into space, and it just so happened to be the first time an American space mission had resulted in loss of life (the Apollo 1 fire notwithstanding, as that mission never got past the testing phase). The Challenger disaster was almost preceded by an even more horrific tragedy, as an oxygen tank explosion ended the chances of Apollo 13 making its scheduled landing on the Moon and could very well have ended with three astronauts either succumbing to the lack of breathable air and extreme cold of space, or burning up in the atmosphere upon re-entry.

The movie begins on July 20, 1969. Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), who flew two Gemini missions as well as Apollo 8, watches with his family as fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on the surface of the Moon. My own parents were of high school age at this time and my father, thinking quickly, snapped some Polaroids of the TV… what passed for screen captures back in the day.

Lovell is determined he wants to return to the Moon, this time to land on it, as the Apollo 8 mission only involved a Lunar orbit. He gets his chance when he, Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) are awarded the Apollo 13 mission, scheduled for launch on April 11, 1970. The computer I am using to write this review is more efficient, and can therefore be said to be better equipped to send men to the Moon than the ones that were actually being used back in those days. For that matter, your cell phone is of superior technology to the computer onboard the Apollo space vehicle. One week prior to the launch of Apollo 13, Mattingly is replaced with his backup, Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), when it is learned that Mattingly may have been exposed to the measles. If that had been the only hiccup the mission would face, there would be no movie.

For reasons I’ll never quite understand, it was decided that public interest in the space program had dwindled down to the point where it seemed pointless for the TV networks to give the Apollo 13 mission the kind of coverage they had given to the previous two. That all changes when one of the Apollo 13’s oxygen tanks explodes, and the other is left venting its contents into space. With the astronauts lives now in peril, suddenly everyone’s interested. At least one of the networks even wants to set up shop on the front lawn of Jim Lovell’s house, to which Marilyn Lovell (Kathleen Quinlan) strongly objects. In space, Swigert’s inclusion had already created a certain amount of tension among the new lineup, tension which is heightened once things go wrong. Meanwhile, the best and brightest at Mission Control in Houston, Texas scramble to come up with a viable plan to get their men home alive. “Failure is not an option,” Mission Director Gene Krantz (Ed Harris) tells them.

That Lovell, Haise and Swigert manage to find their way back to Earth and survive re-entry is no great spoiler. You can look those facts up in the history books. Director Ron Howard nonetheless manages to build suspense through the audience’s question of how their dilemma resolves itself. Even as we know no harm will come to them, the audience still gets caught up in the moment. The visuals in this movie are also quite stunning, none greater than the launch sequence. For the movie “The Right Stuff,” the actual footage of the Mercury 7 launches were used. Here, the massive Saturn V rocket (on top of which sat the Apollo 13 capsule) is entirely CGI. But, oh goodness, is it ever a sight to behold! More so, I’m sure, for anyone of my parents’ generation, for whom the entire movie is like a giant time capsule.

As much as the movie evokes memories for my father of listening to the radio for updates on Apollo 13’s status as a 16-year old, the film itself holds its own personal significance in my life. Aside from his work on “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” James Horner’s soundtrack for “Apollo 13” is one of his finest compositions. I originally saw “Apollo 13” in the theater at the appropriate age of 13. Shortly afterward, I bought a copy of the soundtrack on cassette, and I brought that tape along with me for school field trips to Williamsburg, Virginia, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Orlando, Florida. I have strong memories of pushing the PLAY button as soon as the bus began to move, first hearing the drums, then the trumpet, and then the strings in the opening seconds of Track #1 – “Main Theme.” Even now, listening to it brings me back to each of the liftoffs of my own journeys in to unexplored territory. For this reason alone, I am retroactively fitting “Apollo 13” into my list of all-time favorite films.

Ron Howard and Tom Hanks weren’t done with the story of the Apollo Space Program. Not by a longshot. The 12-part 1998 mini-series “From the Earth to the Moon” is a must-see. The episodes surrounding the Apollo 7 and Apollo 12 missions are my favorites. Though it may upset some of my friends who are fans of the movie “Braveheart,” I really think that Ron Howard and “Apollo 13” were robbed at the Oscars in 1995. But then, space movies just aren’t attractive enough to the Academy. “The Right Stuff” and “Gravity” were each also nominated for Best Picture in their respective years (1983 and 2013), and both also lost. The bigger tragedy is the current state of the American Space Program. I hold no animosity towards anyone for the retirement of the Space Shuttle. That had been long overdue. But were we not supposed to be able, according to our science-fiction writers, to fly commercially to the Moon by now, not to mention preparing for manned missions to Mars? Within “Apollo 13” itself, a monologue from Hanks as Lovell laments the fact that no one has set foot on the Moon since Eugene Cernan stepped back onto the Apollo 17 Lunar Module for departure on December 14, 1972. More than 41 years later, we still don’t have an answer as to when we’ll be going back. What we do have is an entire generation of Americans (myself included), with a second one growing in number every day, who have never experienced this level of awe and wonder for themselves outside of what they read about or see in archival footage. As great as movies like “Apollo 13” are, they can never take the place of the real thing. I would very much like to see at least one Lunar mission happen within my lifetime. Until then, I’ll keep watching the stars.