How I learned to love the real Neil Armstrong and embrace the space race | Maggie Aderin Pocock

The Apollo 11 commander taught me to look beyond the stereotype of astronauts as simply white, male daredevils

" Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist and presenter of the Sky at Night

Throughout 2019, many of us indulged in a sort of moon madness as we relived the historic moment, on 20 July 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped out on to the lunar surface and uttered the now immortal words: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." It is thought that about 20% of the world's population, 650 million people, tuned in to see Armstrong take that small step, and it was fascinating to look back and celebrate the event half a century later. I grew up in the aftermath of the moon landing and this, combined with watching the Clangers (who also celebrated their 50th anniversary last year), sealed my fate: I had to become a space scientist. I longed to take the same small step that Armstrong had made, but as I grew older, I started to doubt whether I had the right stuff.

As a black, female scientist in a white, male-dominated domain, I have felt the smart of this type of assumption myself