BACK in the 1950s, the idea of space travel captured the imaginations of millions, not least in the USA.

Slightly dodgy sci-fi movies and comic books were all the rage, with things like living on the moon being dreamt of as a real possibility.

Then space flight became a reality. In 1961, Russi-an Yuri Gagarin was the first human to enter outer space.

All of a sudden those sci-fi books and movies didn’t seem so far off.

As the space race really kicked into gear, it became a dash to the moon between the Russians and the Americans. The 1960s saw incredible leaps forward in space flight. It really was a golden era.

And in 1969 the USA did it, fulfilling President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.

It’s amazing to think that, more than 40 years ago, men were walking on the moon. In an age where computers were in their infancy, where the internet, social networking and iPhones were a generation away.

Yet man managed to travel almost a quarter of a million miles and walk on the moon.

As space exploration continued, interest and funding waned and Apollo 17 carried the last men to walk on the lunar surface, in 1972.

Then in 1981, the reusable space shuttle came into service. Next Friday the shuttle will take off for its final flight. After that, who knows?

Astronauts will continue to visit the International Space Station (ISS) on Russian and commercial craft, but that romantic era of space flight is almost certainty ending.

On Friday Atlantis is due to blast off on a 12-day mission to take a year’s worth of supplies to the International Space Station – in case private companies fall behind in plans to launch their own cargo ships.

Nasa’s chief of space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said: “This flight is incredibly important to the space station. The cargo that is coming up on this flight is really mandatory.”

Launch time for the last flight is 11.26am. As many as 500,000 to 750,000 people are expected to descend on the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to watch Atlantis blast off, said launch director Mike Leinbach.

As for the shuttle work force, thousands more will lose their jobs once Atlantis flies.

“The mood is getting more and more sombre as you walk down the hall,” Mr Leinbach said. “The end is just weeks away now, where it used to be years away.”

For the future, Nasa is under direction to aim beyond Earth’s orbit, ultimately sending astronauts to an asteroid or Mars. That is why the agency is retiring its three remaining shuttles to museums.

So, in 2011, a year which sci-fi writers and movie makers of 50 years ago may have well envisaged would have seen us all walking around on the moon using flying cars and eating meals in pill form, sees us in many ways behind those pioneers of the 1960s.

There have been tragedies along the way and the people that lost their lives in the name of space exploration should never be forgotten.

But whatever the costs have been, almost 40 years since man last walked on the moon? Pretty unbelievable and a big shame, if you ask me.

Another leap back for mankind?

On the subject of going backwards, how about Concorde? The iconic supersonic jet was retired in 2003 as, despite its glamour, it never made money. It was the fatal crash near Paris in 2000 that signalled the end for the bird that could fly from London to New York in little over three hours – a conventional jet takes around eight.

The famous plane visited Bournemouth on several occasions, not least in 1996 when it landed at Hurn to mark the extension of the runway.