To celebrate the 40th anniversary of man’s first landing on the moon, NASA gathered together the Apollo 11 astronauts for a Q & A session. Despite being in their 70s and 80s, these men offered some of the most cognizant observations and honest opinions about space and exploration to be aired on television. It was a fascinating exposition of the astronauts as men: their desires, their views on how the world has changed since then, and a stunning indictment of the modern risk-averse, it’s-not-my-responsibility worldview.

Quite honestly, I don’t believe we could replicate the lunar achievement today. No politician or civil servant would be willing to pull their head out of their arse and put it in on the line. It’s too risky, too dangerous - we might get sued… As Buzz Aldrin pointed out, a trip to Mars might well have to be a one-way trip, because it’s ten times more difficult to get someone back as it is to send them. Can you imagine a politician or civil servant suggesting that now? These men, who fortunately came of age in the right decades, were the last of the great explorers and stood on the shoulders of Columbus, Magellan, Cook and Scott.

In the past, the great explorer lead, motivated and achieved from the front. Today, for better or worse, it’s from the armchair. This is why, 40 years on, even the young know the names Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins – they inspired humanity as they headed for the moon and stopped the world as people gathered around a flickering bland white image, stepped outside to squint at the moon and watched man’s first step on another world. If the 40-year anniversary coverage will have lasting effect on generations too young to remember the actual event at all, I certainly hope part of the story’s power is to remind today’s population, so jaded by the technological ease of world travel and international communication that only banality interests them, that there do exist frontiers still to be discovered – frontiers that cannot be reached from Google worldview or their televison remote control.

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A couple of weeks ago, Walter Cronkite died. His name might not mean much to many of you - a quick Google will fill you in - but he was one of, if not the, most recognizable voices of American media. His death along, with that of Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, may signify the end of journalism. The end of an era when the spin was exposed for what it was, spin. When journalists stood up and questioned the bullshit being fed to them from the press releases. How often do you see that in today’s newspapers and television broadcasts? Cronkite earned the trust of the US public by his actions and hard work. Working in the media today is seen as glamourous and sexy, but that’s because a lot of modern media have become shills for their content. This magazine may not be 100% perfect, but I do believe that good, honest, well-written content will attract and retain readers. As Halberstam put it: ‘The better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be… By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are.’ ‘And that’s the way it is: Sunday 26 July, 2009’