A #British friend asks, "For goodness' sake #America, if you can achieve what you achieved last night, surely you can find a way to fix the global mess you've made politically?" I started to reply with my usual light-hearted snark, and then my answer turned into something else entirely:

I continue to believe we can fix it. Somehow. Eventually.

But I have the unpleasant feeling #Artemis is our last hurrah. Humans will once again walk on the #Moon, and to do so they'll embark from ships emblazoned with the star-spangled banner, and for a moment I'll feel like the kid who grew up with an #Apollo mission profile poster on my bedroom wall and a house full of memorabilia from my father's #NASA career. And then—at best—we'll go back to our steady decline into mediocrity and irrelevance.

That's better than tyranny and destruction, and on a personal level I'll be happy enough if we pull it off. Most nations, and most people in those nations, are mediocre and irrelevant, after all. Nobody stays #1 forever. Survival is victory.

Every once in a while, to the end of my days, I'll look up at the night sky and remember what we could have been.