Even today space travel is a risky business, so imagine how nerve-racking it was for the Apollo 11 astronauts who were expected to make the first Moon landing in technology which was considered cutting-edge...for 1969. The time where most people were still watching things on a black-and-white telly and the idea of a mobile phone was the sort of thing you saw in Star Trek, not real life. They were literally being launched out of the Earth's atmosphere in a tin can strapped to a rocket, and whilst NASA tended to be fairly optimistic, there was the very real possibility that the hunk of junk might not even make it to its destination. Then, if it did, there was the added challenge of everybody getting back home in one piece, something which had never been attempted before. With all that doubt as to the astronauts' safety, they had a hard time getting life insurance. In fact it was impossible for Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin or Michael Collins (the Michelle Williams of the Apollo 11 mission) to get any insurance, such was the worry that the companies in question would probably have to pay out when they inevitably burned to death on reentry. NASA wouldn't be covering them, either, so the enterprising astronauts came up with the plan of signing a bunch of Moon landing memorabilia and entrusting it to their families, under the proviso that should they kick the bucket, selling a bunch of stuff with their immortal scrawls on would take care of their wives and children in the same way an insurance payout would. Luckily it never came to that, but still, what the heck, NASA?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
