IN 2003, I had the privilege of interviewing by phone a former Poole man named Ron Toms.

Like me, Mr Toms had gone to Poole Grammar School, albeit decades earlier. Unlike me, he hadn’t found the maths hard.

In fact, he was so gifted at maths and engineering that he gained two masters degrees and enjoyed a shining career at Nasa. And on July 20 1969, he found himself speaking by radio phone to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they guided their module onto the surface of the moon.

Mr Toms, who died in 2006, was a builder’s son whose talents took him from Longfleet Road Mixed Infants to Kennedy Space Centre. He was just one of the many fascinating characters to be tied up with the history of mankind’s efforts to explore space.

The best-known among that cast of characters were, of course, the astronauts whose astonishing bravery is every bit as hard for me to comprehend as advanced rocket science. Mr Toms recalled how three people had volunteered to go to the moon even if there was no way of getting back.

This Friday, the last Nasa space shuttle mission is due to blast off, bringing to an end an era in space exploration.

As Steven Smith’s feature on the subject makes clear in the Echo today, the space programme has an astonishing and inspirational past. Let’s hope it has a future as well.