'A Bunch of Boys'

'A Bunch of Boys'
"There’s a moment in the movie “First Man” — about Neil Armstrong — that we keep thinking of as the jubilee of Apollo 11 is being celebrated throughout the Milky Way.
It’s the confrontation over a crisis in the flight of Gemini 8, when Armstrong’s wife rejects NASA’s reassurance that it has everything under control.
“No you don’t ....” she retorts. “You’re a bunch of boys making models out of balsa wood. You don’t have anything under control.”

God they were glorious. 
...We do mean to mark the heroical recklessness of Apollo.
It’s hard to imagine that mature men would have made it to the moon.
...As we watch the various fabulous footage — some documentary, some evoked by Hollywood — of Apollo 11, we are often struck at the ricketiness of the enterprise.
The vehicles look like rattletraps, or toys, compared to what is being flown today.
And for the life of us we can’t help thinking that everyone involved looks like they’re barely out of college or the service..."
Must read to the end!