There is a fiery controversy about a new movie, First Man , which recounts NASA’s mission to put a human on the moon. The film omits Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, planting the US flag on the moon.

US senator Marco Rubio called this exclusion “ total lunacy ”. Fellow senator Ted Cruz accused the film of being “wrong” and “denying American exceptionalism”. Others, including Gosling, have defended the decision to omit the flag-planting as a reflection of Armstrong’s belief that it was …