At one fetid pit in a jungle glade, he stepped gingerly onto the surface of the pool, where the solid matter in the produced water had congealed into a tarlike crust that was sturdy enough to support him.

NEWYORKER: Reversal of Fortune

But, watched by an estimated 500m people on television, the astronauts who stepped onto the moon's pockmarked surface were American.

ECONOMIST: The race to the moon