Thus it is fitting that this edition of NASA's Orders of Magnitude not only updates the historical record, but restores aeronautics to its due place in the history of the agency and of mankind's most fascinating and continuing voyage.
Perspective comes with the passage of time.
But responsiveness to changing national concerns is a hallmark of democratic government and the United States' preoccupations shifted to more earthbound concerns even before the Apollo program was completed. That knowledge, garnered in the finest traditions of intellectual endeavor that have characterized the history of the NACA and NASA,will foster a new vitality that will raise to new heights the cyclical pattern of public support for a strong national civil aeronautics and space program.