Twelve people have walked on the moon, and the most recent was over 50 years ago . Now we are looking at a return to crewed missions to the moon using a space station called the Lunar Gateway. Gary Johnson just did some calculations that show that surprisingly the lunar Gateway would require a larger craft to land in the same sites as just launching directly from earth on a single rocket Apollo style.

Apollo 13 was in the news briefly this past week: Ed Smylie appeared in the Economist's obituary , having died on April 21 at the age of 95. Ed led the team of engineers that saved Apollo 13 and the whole won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their efforts. Apollo 13 probably my favorite space movie, despite a lot of competition, and I think the main reason is the love of the material and the particular competence on display: the astronauts are definitely in mortal danger, but it's not because they're making silly mistakes. I've mentioned a couple movies lately, including Top Gun and Battle: Los Angeles . Love of the material Space travel is really cool! I can't count the number of times that I've watched the scene of the Saturn V rocket launching in that movie and it still gives me chills. All of the people who have to work together on the launch, the rousing music, the sheer power of the Saturn V at liftoff...it's a great sequence. And even tho...