(CNN) -- Lady Gaga announced that she's going to sing in space. Everyone is raving about "Gravity," the new movie starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts in orbit. And India just launched its first Mars mission on Thursday. Clearly, we Earthlings are still madly in love with space. But what about the moon? It's sad how far America has fallen in our space aspirations. So far that we can't even get into Earth orbit without help from the Russians, let alone get back to the moon. But NASA is trying to get back in the game. Two months after launch, its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer -- LADEE, pronounced "laddie" -- has finished its looping journey and it is gathering important information about the moon's dust and thin atmosphere.
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Chris Impey: It's sad how far America has fallen in our moon aspirations
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Impey: NASA is trying to get back in the game with the launch of LADEE
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He says other countries and private companies are more ambitious in exploring
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Impey: The moon has much to teach us, let's continue the mission started 50 years ago
@placeholder was designed to characterize the lunar environment in preparation for future human missions.