31 Aug 2012
I remember the moment well. I was nine years old the day before, and being allowed to stay up to see history being made was a special treat. Did I appreciate then just what was happening? I doubt it. At nine do you really have any comprehension of the magnitude of this feat?
How many children in the 60s aspired to being an astronaut, the dream of space travel captured our hearts. Television programmes like Lost in Space, where the whole family Robinson leave our crowded planet in search of another, had us riveted to the screen. As primitive as it was Thunderbirds couldn’t be missed, I imagined they had named Tracy Island after me, although I thought they could have spelt it correctly.
Science Fiction dominated our screens and books; we grew up thinking about a world beyond ours. Didn’t we all have a secret crush on Robin Williams as the friendly alien in Mork and Mindy? Admittedly by 18 I was more interested in the humour than believing that a spaceman had travelled to earth in an egg. Nah-Noo Nah-Noo became a catch phrase and set Williams on a comedy career.
David Bowie’s Space Oddity released in the same year still echoes in my ears. Whenever I hear the words “Here I am sitting in my tin can far above the world” I imagine the isolation, the fear and the dread of every astronaut that they might not return. “Can you hear me Major Tom, your circuit’s dead, can you hear me Major Tom” the song is haunting, just as space travel must be.
As a private service takes place for Neil Armstrong, who died on Saturday 25th August in Ohio aged 82, the sky has graced us with a ‘Blue Moon.’ Not quite as rare as the legend ‘Once in a blue moon’ would suggest – it actually occurs every three years – the next will be in 2015. I’m reflecting, star gazing and looking to the sky with thanks to the man who changed our lives forever.
