Laura McKinney Mikolaitis: Thanks so much for your valuable feedback and positive engagement, which is always most appreciated. I strongly agree with you about “building upon the foundation that was laid so many years ago.” The problem is lack of public support, congressional support (funding), and charismatic presidential leadership. Moreover, as other have noted, we aren’t trying to beat Russia in a space race anymore (to the contrary, we rely on their rockets and launch pads to take American astronauts to the ISS — a national embarrassment in my view…but that’s another story).

Still, Russia, China and India continue to make advancements in space science and discovery on the moon and in space generally (and have larger aspirations for their space programs, as does the USA). It will be interesting to see if NASA can meet President Trump’s stated goal of returning to the moon with female and male astronauts by 2024. I sure hope so.

Meanwhile, that’s amazing that William Bradford is a distant relative of yours. It just goes to show that genius, innovation and leadership run deep in your family bloodline.