Armstrong Base?

Neil Armstrong died yesterday. At 82 he's had a good run and I cannot be sad at that, but I am sad that another of my heroes has 'gone home' and another piece of history is now fixed in time and space.

I had been fascinated by the idea of space, I'd started reading lots of SF (and Dr Who and Star Trek) so that we humans were starting to go out to where my imagination was soaring was just so exciting. I think what really got me going though was the images of the dark side of the Moon that came from Apollo 8. The idea that we were seeing stuff no one had ever seen before.

The best memory though was being excited by the Apollo 11 mission, being wakened by my parents and watching TV at three in the morning with my family, just so we could SEE that first step.

I can remember my parents hugging each other and us very tightly and then the four of us dancing around in excitement. I can't remember what we ate that morning for breakfast, but I do remember toasting Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins with the tea that had gone cold in the excitement of it all.

It seems odd that in fifty years we haven't got that much farther than a few footprints on our closest neighbour's surface, yet my beloved remembers being gathered in front of the school's TV and few of his fellow students being interested, and that is probably the answer. It is sadly not interesting enough to most people who cannot see the point of it all - yet without the space programs of both the USA, USSR, Europe and China we would be even less likely to have the technologies we have today, and the world would be even less exciting than it is now.

So, today I will celebrate the life of a brave man who boldly went where no one had gone before.