Preston astronomer Dermot Gethings, now 70, has described how he was selected at 16 by the US Embassy and Nasa to watch the launch of Apollo 17 at the Kennedy Space Center on 7 December 1972, standing alongside Neil Armstrong in the VIP viewing stand. Gethings, then a schoolboy running an astronomy club in Lancashire, was chosen after his public exhibitions were photographed by a local newspaper, leading to a letter from the embassy and an all expenses paid 19 day trip that included dining at the White House and a chance meeting with Armstrong outside a motel.
World Satire
Preston man who met Neil Armstrong prompts Swindon uncle to remember Apollo 17 'from the Oasis car park'
The Oasis Leisure Centre did not open until 1976, but that has not stopped at least one Swindon household insisting otherwise.
