Could Have Kept Going to Moon in 1973 but stopped for 53 Years

 Back in late April 1973, Meg, a good friend of my sister Anita, took us on a trip down to central Dade County, in its Coconut Grove section.  There we found their museum of science, along with the Space Transit Planetarium.  On that Sunday Star Trek's Mister Spock, aka Leonard Nimoy, hosted a show there speculating about what direction we're going with our space program.  I need not mention here that then-president Richard Nixon...who would be run out of office August the following year because of Watergate, felt absolutely no desire to move forward with human space exploration...hence he canceled the final scheduled Apollo Moon missions.  Since December 1972 no human has walked on the moon's surface,only briefly flying around it a few days ago. I believe that on April 30th 53 years ago I happily walked into my Nova High School Planetartum in the afternoon, expecting a pleasant chat with the aging director.  He was in an angry state and sounded like he was chewing ME out..no interest in exchanging any ideas or showing any  respect.  I was informed that he was retiring...and if others didn't share his astronomy interests, then screw them.  I felt offended and insulted by his childish attitude...It' like that of a spoiled brat engaged in a temper tantrum: If you don't always let me win, then I'll pick up my toys and go home.. Later in 1973, I tried joining Nova's astronomy club, but felt excluded because Steve Johnson, its president, was too important and preoccupied grinding mirrors for a new telescope.  So when i went there for meetings I spent most of my time trying to stay out of Johnson's way...he was polite but overly dismissive: I didn't quite qualify in his estimation as a legitimate guy interested in the field...or as a human being for that matter.  As it was, the club leaders cared only about Comet Kohoutek, highly hyped but turning out to visually be a monumental dud. When I was admitted to Hollywood Memorial Hospital in mid-October for corrective left inguinal hernia correction surgery, I was relieved to not be attending any more astronomy club meetings, which included some classes that I hated. Well, we're supposedly nowadays "going back" to the moon (Obama is known for flippantly dismissing that option in 2010), so let's see what the schedules reveal...