Neil Armstrong 1930-2012

It's hardly an original subject for a post, and the sentiments which I will express aren't particularly new either. As I was told tonight, when I described Armstrong's death as 'sad news' it was for a given value of sad. Neil Armstrong lived a full and remarkable life. For those of us who grew up in the shadow of that walk on the moon[1], though, the end of Armstrong's life seems like the end of a promise. I recalled the articles in children's magazines of the 1970s which envisaged that by now there would be commercial, routine journeys by astronauts who would train in an environment which would make the Apollo astronauts' experiences look prehistoric. This optimism seems far-fetched now, though I am out of the loop as far as space exploration is concerned, and commercial spaceflight is at least becoming a reality. I hope, for the sake of those now distant times, that human beings walk on other worlds later this century.

[1]...and only a shadow; I can only remember the afterword of the Apollo programme, Apollo-Soyuz.