Men into Space by Murray Leinster — Read

(When Ed McCauley was still a reasonably young officer, there were many commonplace things that hadn't been done yet. Satellites circled the earth from west to east and across both poles and with other assorted orbits. There were artificial satellites in orbit even around the sun, and every so often somebody put up a new one for some new purpose. There'd been a landing on the moon -- by robot -- and a robot station there spasmodically reported temperatures and cosmic-ray frequency, and a surprising number of moonquakes. But even so, many things hadn't yet been done. Man had circled the earth in capsules, but not yet had any man lifted his own rocketship from Earth and set himself in orbit. Still less had any man risen into space as the captain of his ship and brought it back to earth. Until such a thing was done, it would be absurd to speak of spaceships. Missiles, yes. Satellites, yes. But a ship had to take off and land on its own before men could say there is such a thing as a spaceship.)

Young Major McCauley arrived at Quartermain Base in an Air Transport ship which stopped briefly to drop him off and toss out a mail sack which was instantly taken in charge by two side-armed noncoms and hauled away. Then the Transport ship bellowed vociferously and took off across the incredibly level pebbly plain, lifted and retracted its wheels, and soared up into the infinitely blue sky of this part of the world. It left McCauley standing in a vast emptiness, except for unimpressive base buildings. He felt singularly lonely.