Quintin Jardine's blog

RIP Neil Armstrong, one of the great heroes of my life-time. I say ‘one of’ because he shares that status with his crew mates Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, and with every other person, in the Apollo programme and beyond who has been brave and crazy enough to sit on top of a bloody great rocket and be blasted into space.

Like much of the world, I sat up waiting for Armstrong to step out of that capsule; by the time he did, the next day had dawned in Scotland, but none of us cared for we weren’t going to miss that moment. When  think about it now, I’m staggered by the realisation that it all happend 43 years ago, way back in the days when a computer filled a room, and my next door neighbour who worked for IBM has a sales target of one a year. That was the greatest human achievement of my lifetime, and I’m proud I was around when it happened.