Forty-two years ago yesterday, Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ascended from the surface of the moon and rendezvoused with Michael Collins in the command module Columbia for their trip home from mankind’s maiden voyage to the moon. All three men are now in their 80s, and no human being has been on the moon since each of them was 42 — and now even the space shuttle has had its last liftoff.

Americans, however, do not seem to be content with this state of demise. A new CNN poll reminded Americans that, for the foreseeable future, “all manned U.S. space flights will take place in spacecraft that are owned by other countries” and then asked whether “the end of the space shuttle program” would be “good” or “bad” for the U.S.” By a margin of almost 3 to 1 (50 to 16 percent), Americans answered that it would be “bad.”