What we once felt—and what we risk losing now

I remember the late 1950s not as history, but as atmosphere.

The word Sputnik had just entered the American vocabulary, and with it came a quiet, unsettling question: had the United States fallen behind?

I didn’t understand geopolitics. I understood tone.

I remember my father talking about it as he played handball—half conversation, half speculation. Was he worried? Confident? Dismissive? I couldn’t tell you. What I do remember is that it mattered enough to talk about.

And I remember Life magazine.

Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room—Dr. Schwartz, I think—I picked up an issue with a striking cover: the newly introduced Mercury astronauts. Seven men who, to a young boy, looked less like pilots and more like something out of the future.

Inside were their stories, their training, their mission. America was introducing its space pioneers not as distant heroes, but as people—husbands, fathers, test pilots—inviting the public into the journey.

That openness mattered.

In those early days, American rocket launches were far from perfect. Many were little more than modified World War II–era rockets—vehicles designed to........

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