Starman

As you may have heard Neil Armstrong, the world’s most reluctant hero, died last week.

Armstrong was the first person to walk on the moon, a true giant of exploration, yet he hated talking about it. In his view he was just doing his job and it was no more interesting than yours or mine. He was one of only twelve people to have stepped on the lunar surface. When I was a boy sending people to our satellite was commonplace – there was a new launch every few months, all heading to the moon and, crucially, returning safely. In my childish naivety I imagined it would always be like this and so, apparently, did they. When Gene Cernan, the last human to stand on the lunar surface, was preparing to leave for home he said ‘I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future’. But it hasn’t turned out that way. In December it will be forty years since Cernan came back from the moon and there are no definite plans to go back even now.

The ‘seventies were a magical time; a period that many believe was the peak of man’s technical ability. We went to the moon. We flew from London to New York in three and a half hours on Concorde. Since then we seem to have started looking at the short term cost of these kind of engineering marvels instead of the long term benefits.

After Armstrong’s death I looked at the BBC’s news website. Sure enough, they reported it well as you’d expect from such an august organisation. The article was their second most-viewed internet page that day. But what was the most-viewed? What did visitors to the BBC site want to read about more than the news of the passing of the greatest pioneer of my lifetime?

Louise Clarke, a dancer from the 1970’s ‘Top of the Pops’ dance troupe Pan’s People, had died on the same day. More people wanted to read about that apparently.

This week there are different kinds of heroes performing miracles in the Paralympic Games. As we watch them pushing the boundaries of human ability and endeavour shouldn’t we all ask ourselves: what have I done to improve our world – and ourselves – today?

Neil Armstrong, 1930 – 2012, RIP

Louise Clarke, 1949 – 2012, RIP

© Shaun Finnie 2012  –  follow Shaun on Twitter  @ShaunFinnie

Shaun Finnie is the author of ‘Make Easy Money from Writing’ – available from Amazon now.