A busy eleven minutes later we were in Earth orbit. The Earth didn't look much different from the way it had during my first flight, and yet I kept l… - Buzz Aldrin

Nevertheless, I was convinced that I could be selected as an astronaut. Ed White had been accepted, and we had flown together in the Air Force during the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States. I knew Ed was a good fighter pilot, and I was, too. “I can shoot gunnery as well as if not better than Ed can,” I said. “I’m going to apply to be an astronaut.

It’s a bitter joke, but you’re right,” he said. “I suppose a species that all got along perfectly with each other would never make it to the stars, because they’d never argue enough to make their ideas work. And a species that thought everything through first wouldn’t get there because they’d never get around to it. So the galaxy will eventually be ruled by impetuous bickerers.

From space there were no observable borders between nations, no observable reasons for the wars we were leaving behind.