The "Beep" heard 'round the World

Today - October 4 - is the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, this planet's first artificial satellite. And it seems all the promise of the early years of the "Space Age" hasn't, well, hasn't really been met. The last man on the Moon, Gene Cernan, climbed back into his Apollo 17 LM almost 35 years ago (on December 14, 1972). What happened? Why didn't we go to Mars? We're going to have to wait until 2020 before the US returns to the Moon. And it's likely to get a little crowded up there - the Chinese, Japanese and Indians have all said they plan to send someone to the Moon around that time.