Here's wishing the first space tourists many happy returns

I am old enough to have witnessed, at an impressionable age, the moment when the evolution from dog to chimpanzee to man orbiting the Earth occurred, when "reaching for the stars" went from a figurative to a literal pursuit.

To this day I am haunted by the sad plight of Laika the space dog, who was sent into orbit (but never returned) just days before I officially became an earthling.

I could not have imagined, while watching on live TV as Neil Armstrong placed his oversized boot onto the surface of the moon, that even I could one day buy a ticket to venture into space.