Odysseus has landed, not on Ithaca but near the south pole of the moon. Last month an American spacecraft named after Homer’s wandering hero touched down on the lunar surface to prepare the ground for Artemis, Nasa’s first manned mission to the moon since 1972. “What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon,” declared Bill Nelson of Nasa. “This feat is a giant leap forward for all of humanity.”

It didn’t make much of a media splash – certainly not when you compare it with that first giant leap for mankind, announced by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong in 1969, that had audiences across the world glued to their TV screens. Since then disillusion, and disinformation, have set in.