* Astronomy

In yesterday's post, I talked about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's walk across the lunar surface back in 1969 and wondered, how come they walked such a modest distance? Less than a hundred yards from their lander?

Today Neil Armstrong wrote in to say, here are the reasons:

* It was really, really hot on the moon, 200 degrees Fahrenheit. We needed protection.

* We were wearing new-fangled, water-cooled uniforms and didn't know how long the coolant would last.
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Why Neil Armstrong remains an elusive hero
Forty years after the lunar module Eagle touched down in the Sea of Tranquility, the Moon landing continues to captivate. The Space Race may have been a child of the Cold War but its ultimate expression, the Apollo series of lunar expeditions, transcended politics, presenting Man with the first full view of his delicate little world.
The greatest technological triumph of the 20th Century was the product of eight feverish years of research and development, $150 billion (at today's prices) and 400,000 people. At the centre of it all was the 38-year-old son of a minor civil servant from a small town in the Ohio corn belt.

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In the Dumfriesshire town of Langholm they still talk about the day Neil Armstrong came to visit. It was 11 March, 1972, almost three years after the first Moon landing, but there had been no dimming of his stardom.
The first man to set foot on the Moon was in the Muckle Toon, seat of his Scottish ancestors, to receive the freedom of the burgh. Armstrong's Rolls-Royce pulled up in the bunting-decked town square, then he and his wife Janet strolled, waving, through the thronging crowds, accompanied by the Provost, a police escort and a pipe band.

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