““I was aware that I was on the moon, but the immense distance separating me from the earth was a pure abstraction for me. I felt as though the people I spoke with on the phone were somewhere close by—not because I could hear their voices clearly in the receiver, but because I couldn’t imagine how the entirely immaterial official relationships and personal feelings that linked us together could be stretched so far. But the strangest thing was that the memories connecting me with childhood could extend over such an incomprehensible distance too.””