The gateman checked my ticket, and I went out to the Washington plane.
It was a luxury ship, a fifty-two-passenger, four-engined DC-6,
scheduled to be in the capital one hour after take-off. By morning
this plane, the Aztec, would be in Mexico City.

The couple going up the gangway ahead of me were in their late
sixties. Fifty years ago, what would they have said if someone had
predicted this flight? The answer to that was easy; at that time,
high-school songbooks featured a well-known piece entitled "Darius
Green and His Flying Machine." Darius, it seems, was a simple-minded
lad who actually thought he could fly.

Fifty years. That was the time the Air Force had estimated it would
take us to start exploring space. Would Americans come to accept space
travel as matter-of-factly as the people now boarding this plane? The
youngsters would, probably; the older ones, as a rule, would be a
little more cautious.

In the oval lounge at the rear of the plane, I took out the file of
old sighting reports. Glancing through it, I, saw excerpts from
nineteenth-century astronomical and scientific journals and extracts
from official gazettes. Most of the early sightings had been in Great
Britain and on the Continent, with a few reports scattered around the
world. The American reports did not begin until the latter part of the
century.

{p. 57}

The DC-6 rolled out and took off. For a few minutes I