missile gap, a space gap. so did lyndon johnson. in fact, lbj helped create nasa in 1958. our whole creation of nasa was a response to sputnik. and in the late 50s, everything became nik. they put a dog up, and it became pooch nik. sputnik kind of motivated jack kennedy. by 1960 in the debates with richard nixon, kennedy charged nixon that if you re president, i see a soviet flag on the moon. if you elect me president, there will be an american flag on the moon. doug, this calls for a judgment, but you re a historian after all. how would lbj and jfk take the news that in this very day, if we want to get our astronauts um to the international space station, our ride is the russians . we don t have a spacecraft ready for the task. where did we lose it along the