Why didn't we go back to the moon after the Apollo program whose success we remember today, the 40th anniversary of the first landing? Because there was nothing there worth going back for.

The columnist Charles Krauthammer lamented last week: "We came, we saw, we retreated. How could we?"

Well, exactly because a few of us - not "of us" really, but a few daring aviators and Korean War veterans who put their lives on the line - went there and saw, and the country saw no need to go back.

They had seen what there was to see. They had done what there was to do. They had roamed about in lunar golf carts. And they had brought back several loads of moon rocks.

There may be minerals there. But we have minerals on Earth, and they are a heck of a lot easier to get.

China now is making noises about wanting to go to the moon. It's a prestige thing with them, just as it was with the United States in the race against the Soviets in the 1960s. If the Chinese want to go, let them, and good luck. They will discover the same essentially useless and dangerous wasteland that Armstrong and his colleagues stepped on 40 years ago. (hh)