NASA is going back to the moon.

NASA has a new Vision for Space Exploration: in the decades ahead, humans will land on Mars and explore the red planet. Brief visits will lead to longer stays and, maybe one day, to colonies. First, though, we're returning to the Moon.

In my other life I'm a project manager. I'd love to be a project manager at NASA. Not because I don't like my current job. It's because I want to be a part of something that changes the world. And these are the people who put a man on the moon. Not only did they change the world but they changed the profession of project management, and they still do so today. There are few project endeavours of the size and complexity of launching people into space strapped to rockets. Well, not if you want to bring them back, that is.

I think that thinking like this is my mid-life crisis. It's the nagging thought about the legacy I might leave. I'd like it to be more than I made it through. I want to matter. Is that heroic aspiration or a selfish thought?