It occurred to me, watching a hilarious bit on the Daily Show last night, that what spoiled manned moon exploration for the generations after Apollo 11 wasn’t the dissenters, but Alan Shepard. For serious: I can’t think of a better way to trivialize a giant leap for mankind than turning the final frontier into a putting green.
For my (taxpayer) money, the classiest thing we’ve ever done in space is the Voyager mix tapes (listen here), featuring Blind Willie Johnson and Glenn Gould, among others. Did You Know: EMI wouldn’t permit the use of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” for fear that aliens would pirate it?*
*I made the part about aliens up. In later years, EMI became more generous about SPACE DRM.