The November/December 2017 issue of SI went to print omitting the first paragraph of Stuart Vyse’s article, “Before Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, There Was Dan Q. Posin.” The editors regret this omission and extend our apologies to Dr. Vyse and our readers. The paragraph in question should have read as follows:
“In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a powerful rivalry.
After World War II, both countries began stockpiling increasingly destructive nuclear weapons, and in 1957 the U.S.S.R. shocked the world by launching Sputnik I into Earth orbit, demonstrating that it had sufficient rocket power to deliver a nuclear weapon to Europe or North America. The Sputnik launch galvanized the United States, increasing the demand for scientists and putting much greater emphasis on the teaching of science and mathematics. Each new NASA launch was a national media event, and in 1962 President John F. Kennedy made his famous ‘We Choose to Go to the Moon’ speech, setting the goal of sending an astronaut to the moon and back before the end of the 1960s.”