Neil Armstrong

I can still remember the excitement when I saw the live pictures of Neil Armstrong stepping out onto the moon. It still amazes me how someone could have the courage to travel so far away from the home planet for so long. This type of exploration was completely different to any that had happened before. Not only did the have to carry their own food and water they had to carry their own oxygen. They had to take a little part of the whole earth with them in order to survive but even so they could not be supplied with the gravity conditions we enjoy on earth or the same perspective of the horizon. The Apollo 11 astronauts took enormous risks to achieve their mission and even succeeded despite computer based prompting to abandon the mission. This was human intelligence and spirit combining to operate at their best.

The moon landings and the first trip to orbit the moon, in Apollo 8, by Borman, Lovell and Anders  shows the United States of America at its best, for its ingenuity, technical ability and bravery. All this was typified by Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin and exemplified when Lovell lead the stricken Apollo 13 mission back home against all the odds.

No words of mine can pay full tribute to Neil Armstrong.

Curiosity

If I was able to award and Olympic gold medal, I would award it to Nasa for successfully landing the Curiosity probe on Mars. We still have no hard evidence that life has started anywhere else in the Universe other than  on Earth.

I believe that life must have started on other planets somewhere in our galaxy but the chance of that life evolving into "intelligent beings" is probably remote. Believing something to be true is different to knowing that something is true and I would love to see hard evidence. Curiosity cannot, however, prove that life has never existed on Mars. Proof positive would lead to some profound changes to how we see ourselves and our place in the Universe. I will still not expect to meet some visitors from an alien planet even if we prove that there is life elsewhere in our solar system.

Public Interest

I am a member of the public and I do not consider it to be in my interests to see pictures of Prince Harry performing his antics. Some newspapers claim that they have the right to publish these photographs because they have already been seen by everybody on a celebrity internet site. Well, I do not look at celebrity sites and I have no intention of doing so. When these pictures are limited to the internet viewers have to make a positive effort to see them, but when the person sitting opposite holds up their newspaper close to our face we have no choice but to look. The newspapers should consider this. We can all use our imagination about what happened so we do not need to have it pushed into our faces. It is debatable whether the antics of the Prince in Las Vegas should have been published at all. All this is done in the name of making money not in the public interest.

Please consider this: there is an outside but reasonable chance that Prince Harry will become the Head of State. Whether you are a republican or a monarchist do you want your Head of State  to become the subject of ridicule or public entertainment? The press should consider this too.

This weekend we have been treated to headlines from the popular press that there are rumours that a singer and a professional footballer have been having an affair. Once again you cannot avoid seeing these headlines. We have no way of knowing whether these rumours are true of not. We do not need to know about or read about such rubbish. Publication of such rumours is not in the public interest.

Once again the press is causing anguish to the family and friends of famous people when there is no need for it. Let's hope that the Leveson enquiry shows some teeth to prevent the publication of nonsense and rumour which has no bearing upon legitimate public concern.