By Colin McIlwaine
It’s hard to believe that fifty years have now passed since 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong uttered those now famous words: “One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Around the world, people from all sorts of different backgrounds and perspectives watched in fascination, as Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took those first tentative steps on the surface of the moon. Among the viewers was one small boy in Northern Ireland, who was approaching his eighth birthday and enthralled by all things related to space travel and the possibility of alien life elsewhere in the Solar System.
For me, questions about cost and other aspects of the “Space Race” had not yet come into the equation. It was simply an amazing experience to be sitting in front of the television with my family and watching men walk on the surface of the body which I could see in the sky every night.
It was and still is, something etched powerfully in my mind, and the film “First Man”, along with the current spate of programmes, have brought back happy and vivid memories of a momentous occasion.
Memories of the Moon Landing
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