I had a toy rocket when I was a kid. It was made of plastic. The word NASA was printed on it. It was a Saturn V rocket, king daddy of all rockets. The same one that took men to the moon. My GI Joe doll could ride it like a horsey.

My friend Bradley had a shuttle-stack rocket, with winged orbiter and two solid rocket boosters. You want to talk power.

All the boys wanted to play with that thing. We would fight over who got to play with it.

“It’s my turn, Randy. Give it here, you big hog. You’ve had it forever, it’s not even yours.”

“I’m telling Mom. What did you call me? No I’m not. Say that again and you’ll have a fat lip.”

“What did you call me? Nuh, uh. YOU’RE a stupid turd monger. Oh yeah? I know you are but what am I? MOM!”

I recently had a conversation with some young people about space. They were teenagers. They were uninterested.

I asked whether they knew we’d been to the moon. One of them shrugged and said the moon landing was a hoax. I smiled. Then, I asked whether they knew what the International Space Station was, and how it was designed in 1984, and how it’s been in orbit for 27 years, and how it’s been visited by almost 300 astronauts.

The teen just smiled vacantly and said, “The international what?” Then they went back to texting each other dirty pictures on their phones.

But there was a time in our culture when space exploration was treated very differently. I come from old men who worked on Roadmasters and Impalas beneath shade trees in the backyard. Men who loved machines. Men who thought rockets were the glory of all manmade achievement. Men who used the words “John Glenn” with the same tone they used when speaking of the Gentle Nazarene.

That’s the culture I grew up in. Space mattered. Space was important. Our schoolteachers made big deals about celestial exploration. Entire portions of our class period were dedicated to learning about the universe. In my class, at least a dozen boys WANTED to be astronauts when they grew up.

And if you’re familiar with the following statements:

“Mary very easily makes jam S.U.N. period,” or “Men very easily make jugs serve useful needs perhaps,” or “My very elegant mother just sat upon nine porcupines,” then your childhood was similar to mine.

I remember sitting in my class, crisscross on the floor as we watched the Challenger explode. I remember the look on the teacher’s face when she covered her mouth and just stared at the television in rapt horror. Weeping.

I remember how Christa McAuliffe was a household name. A schoolteacher from Concord. She was one of us. I remember how empowered and proud Mrs. Merritt sounded whenever she talked about Christa.

I remember when Russia launched the first control module to begin construction on the International Space Station. I remember when John Glenn returned to space in ‘98. I remember when Eileen Collins became the first female to command a U.S. spacecraft. I remember when Juno orbited Jupiter.

And this afternoon, when we send four people to lunar orbit, I’ll remember that, too.

In a matter of hours, four humans will depart from Earth on a free-return trajectory route, flying around the moon and back to Earth. It’s the first mission like this since 1972.

I’ll be watching. And so will my GI Joe.