If you don’t believe it happened, you’re an idiot.

•••

Columbus stumbled onto the New World on what was a purely commercial venture.

I also remember my fellow Canadians being not nearly as excited as I was. The space program was an American thing. Ennui was the correct response.

At least my grade school principal was into it, and gave us frequent updates on John Glenn’s flight over the intercom.

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* As a young child I was deeply saddened that the Russians didn’t have a way to bring her back to earth. Only decades later did the world learn just how horrific that whole exercise had really been.

It was only made worse when, some years back, one of the Russian scientists who worked on the project declared “We learned nothing that was worth the life of the dog.”