My childhood heroes were people like Armstrong, Aldrin, Shepherd and Harrison Schmitt - the last man (and the only scientist) to walk on the moon back in 1972.
It's difficult to appreciate the risks involved in today's cosseted society but the three man crew of the Apollo missions were 250,000 miles from home in uncharted territory and at the mercy of meteorite strikes, solar storms and all manner of perils in their tiny, flimsy spacecraft with little or no hope of rescue should the slightest problem occur.
