Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Tony 1963]

1. �Ed Mitchell, on his way back from the Moon, realised that �the molecules of my body and of the spacecraft and of my partners were manufactured in some ancient generation of stars.�

I have difficulty understanding the phrase �manufactured in some ancient generation of stars�. Does it mean �manufactured in some ancient-generation stars� (stars of ancient generations)? Or �manufactured in the generation of some ancient stars�(the process of producing the stars)?

2. �Another of Bean�s thoughts sums up the very essence of the Apollo missions, indeed of all human travel: that it isn�t about where you�re going, it�s about who you are.�

Why do you need a �that� here. What is its function?

3. �Even though we�ve overreached (and overborrowed), and been reminded of some home truths, we know that one day we�ll reach out once more.�

What do you mean by �overreached�? We go too far?

Thank you so much.

[redset]

1. Yeah your first interpretation is correct - it's talking about an ancient generation, stars which were all created around the same time (relatively!) in the ancient past.

2. It's not really necessary after a colon. If we paraphrased the sentence like this:
'The very essence of the Apollo missions is that it isn't about where you're going, it's about who you are.'
You can see that the second half of the sentence, the that clause, functions as a complement of be. That basically marks the start of the clause which is the object of the sentence.

3. Yeah, went too far or tried to go too far. If you overreach (if you stretch too far trying to grab something) then you've gone beyond your limits, usually with consequences (you lose your balance, you hurt yourself, you don't have enough resources to complete the job etc.).

[Tony 1963]

Thank you, Redset. It sure helped.