RIP rocket man

Amidst all the tributes to Neil Armstrong's extraordinary heroism - not to be understated, for sure - it's perhaps worth dwelling on the apparent pointlessness of it all. He was a scientist first and foremost, who strove to shun the limelight that inevitably shone on him in the wake of the moon landing and who believed passionately in the value of exploration in advancing the frontiers of science. Yet this most celebrated of Americans grew disillusioned at NASA and at the fact that the "giant leap for mankind" he'd so memorably heralded had failed to materialise. History suggests that he was essentially a pawn in the Cold War pissing contest, and once the US could claim the bragging rights over the Soviet Union, they started to lose interest.

That's not to say, though, that, stripped of all its political significance, the achievement of Armstrong and his crew wasn't a remarkable one - that much is evident from reading all of the various accounts of the Apollo 11 mission. Doing what they did equipped only with a primitive computer with all the processing power of a contemporary pocket calculator is astounding. Setting foot on the moon was a noble goal in itself.

Armstrong's death has meant the mission's pictures of Earth and the moon - still awe-inspiring today - have been getting a welcome airing. Tributes are also being paid to Malcolm Browne, the man behind several other iconic images displaying the darker side of 1960s America, Vietnam. The story of the photos of the burning Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc in particular, which many people are familiar with due to the cover of Rage Against The Machine's self-titled debut album, is worth reading.