THE first satellite launching I ever covered," says TIME'S Houston Bureau Chief Don Neff, "seemed to me the most thrilling thing I had ever seen." That was in 1959, and Neff has been searching for more expansive superlatives ever since. He has watched other space shots, and as each one traveled farther or stayed in orbit longer, Neff was more and more impressed by the skill and dedication of the engineers and scientists whose work he reported. He was on hand at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory when word was passed that Mariner 4 had made a successful flight past Mars, and the electric tension in the great computer-packed control room was something Neff was sure he would never see equaled.

He has already changed his mind. The Apollo 8 moon mission, he feels, should have an air of unmatched excitement. Washington Correspondent David Lee and Houston Stringer James Schefter, who also reported for this week's cover, agree. The close race with the Russians, the pride of trailblazing, the somberness of three men risking their lives--all combine to give this next moonbound flight a very special aura.

Neff is sure that "no unmanned flight, however impressive its mission, can ever equal the sense of commitment and challenge" he saw building up during this cover assignment. "And no manned flight," he reported, "will ever match the suspense of Apollo 8." Then he had a cautionary thought: What about the shot that will actually land a man on the moon, perhaps by next summer?

Keeping pace with the space program's schedule of increasing excitement is no less of a challenge for the staff of TIME'S Science section in New York. Associate Editor Leon Jaroff, who wrote the cover story, says that he still cannot quite come to terms with the astounding fact that a manned capsule will almost surely reach the moon in his lifetime. Researcher Sydnor Vanderschmidt, who has worked on 18 Science covers, twelve of them concerned with space, admits that for her the novelty of space flight had begun to wane--until she began collecting information about the coming moon mission. As she went back over the history of the U.S. space effort, she was reminded of how much has been accomplished in so short a time. And having worked on so many of TIME'S stories about the age of space, she felt a new involvement. The hurried effort to orbit the little Explorer satellite in 1958, John Glenn's historic orbital ride, the first space walk ... all man's halting steps suddenly seemed to have brought him within reach of his lunar goal. And by now, every member of TIME'S Science section has a personal stake in the trip.

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