July 21 1965 : the closing of the (last) (cosmic) Frontier and the death of Panic Modernity

Many of today's male adults who were small children back in July 1965 have recorded their intense disappointment when they opened their parents' daily paper to gaze upon the first photos from Mariner 4's flypast of Mars, revealing its surface to be as dead as that of the Moon.

They were hardly the only ones to be extremely disappointed, even extremely surprised - most male adults - even male adult scientists - felt much the same.