Rockets and politics: Nasa goes gold [editorial]

On this month??s cover is an image from April 1972: astronaut John Young jumps as he salutes the US flag (which, we worked out, is why he appears to have no shadow, you conspiracy theorists). It??s the Apollo 16 mission to the Descartes region of the Moon, in which Young and fellow astronaut Charles Duke made three excursions in a 71 hour visit. They covered 26km in their Lunar Roving Vehicle, which is parked in front of the Lunar Module. In the background is Stone Mountain.