Jonathan Meades writes for the London Review of Books:
Concorde was seen in the sky over West London for the first time in late June 1969. Less than a month later Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo 11 onto the moon. The future had arrived. It was tangible, it was thrilling, it was now. We came to believe that we were all part of an adventure without end. This was just the beginning, the new beginning.
What we didn’t realise was that this was it. A peak had been achieved. The only way was down.