_June, 1973--January, 1976_
They sent two men out through unknown space to a far cold place, a
place whose very name was fear, the name of the cruel god, the god of
war. They shot two men off the Moon--out from the sun and away from the
earth--in a new great ship with a shiny hull and a miracle fuel.
The ship went out with a blast and a prayer. After three years it came
back with a sigh, unpowered, fuel-less, floating in slow-spiralled
orbit through empty sky around the Moon. It came back with its hull
scratched and dented and darkened from the dust and debris of space,
the wind and sands of Mars. It came back with one man in it instead of
two.
Johnny Wendt was the one who came back.