re: 40 years ago today and expectations
It took a fire to put a man on the Moon.
Going to space is not easy!
This is also why (while discussing about the merits of COTS with friends), none believe it can work. ESA spent 668M EUR in 2003 and 558 M EUR in 2004 only to achieve the ECA Ariane 5 development (which is not meant to be manned) while only 160 M $ are needed in 2009 to build the manned transport with the hope of becoming cost effective by 2018.