Neil Armstrong RIP

I was nine months old when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon and immortalised the words "It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." This  probably was and is man's greatest feat of exploration to date. It culminated almost a decade of effort, millions of man hours of work and it meant NASA completed John F Kennedy's dream of landing a man on the moon before the decade (of the sixties) was finished.

During my childhood and throughout my life I've been fascinated by space travel and exploration, I have read many books about the astronauts and the space programme, and have been amazed by the shear vision, sense of purpose that led to the landing by the crew of Apollo 11 in July 1969. It amazes me that this happened and that we managed to get there. I'm even amazed by the shear scale of the technology, the awesome power of the Saturn V rocket, the fact that the average smart phone has more computing power than the computer in the lunar lander.

It was with sadness that I heard on the radio that Neil Armstrong died last Saturday following complications after heart surgery.

If you want to read about the amazing effort of getting men to the moon. I would recommend two books, A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chailkin and Moondust by Andrew Smith.

Let's hope these won't be the only footprints we leave on the moon.