        He had been working as a machinist for a few years—in those days, it wasn’t something that you went to trade school for, you just got a job at a machine shop, swept up shavings, and if you seemed remotely competent, you eventually got to try your hand at the lathe.  He’d gone home, a dingy one-room apartment that smelled of mildew despite his constant cleaning, and flipped on his second-hand Zenith console.  He knew that the moon landing was probably a forgone conclusion.  NASA had been practicing for it for nearly a decade, and aside from the three astronauts dying in a fire on the ground, everything had worked. 