This morning, 40 years ago, Apollo 11 was cleared for liftoff and would begin a mission that would forever be remembered by people around the world for generations to come: when man went on the moon.

Fast forward almost half a century later and America finds itself uninspired in a thwarted space race. Our country has lost its drive for something greater and otherworldly and instead focuses on war and repairing an economy in turmoil. The nostalgia of the moon landing and the other landmark space missions of the 1960s are now stories passed down through the experiences of our parents and grandparents and what we can scrap out of footage from documentaries and films.

When kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, they no longer say they want to be astronauts. Instead, they’d rather be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a somber feeling knowing that children have lost their will to dream of reaching for the stars.