It may be the 40th Anniversary of the First Lunar Landing, but an E&T Survey has Revealed That a Shocking 25% of the British Public Refuse to Believe man has Walked on the Moon!

LONDON -

- And in an Exclusive Interview With the Magazine, Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Says Going Back to the Moon ‘Doesn’t Make Sense’ but Man will Stand on Mars by 2031

To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the first time man walked on the moon, E&T magazine and website - published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology - will include an exclusive interview with lunar legend Buzz Aldrin - in the issue out on 8th July - in addition to revealing the results of a special survey into the UK public’s knowledge and beliefs about the Apollo programme.

The results of the survey were not entirely positive with 25% of the public still not believing that Apollo 11 landed on the moon, with another 11% believing it was as recent as the 1980s, while 1% of the study was sure that the first astronaut to stand on the moon was called Buzz Lightyear!

However, in a more positive vein, an impressive 74% of people questioned were able to correctly name Neil Armstrong as the first man on the moon and an encouraging 68% were able to correctly name the year.

In the interview with E&T, Buzz Aldrin disagreed with the 44% of the survey who believed that, at the equivalent of $1 trillion, the moon landings were not worth the money. On the legacy of the Apollo missions Buzz said ‘All sorts of people from engineers to airline pilots who report back on what it was that got them into aerospace and science, developing engineering and math, say it was the Apollo programme that inspired them’.

Buzz also disagreed with the 60% of respondents who believed that man will return to the moon within the next 10 years, arguing that the next major step for man will be to visit Mars which he predicts could happen by 2031.

The research to test the public’s knowledge was conducted by TNS on behalf of Engineering & Technology magazine (E&T) and website ( kn.theiet.org/magazine/). The poll surveyed 1009 people from all over the UK aged between 16 and 64, using a series of multiple choice questions and was conducted between 02/06/09 and 04/06/2009. Copies of the questions and results are available on request.

In the exclusive E&T interview, when questioned about returning to the moon Buzz Aldrin said: ‘That doesn’t impress me too much. Going back to the moon 50 years after we went there in the last century, without a clear development plan for what we were going to do, doesn’t make much sense’.

However, Buzz was more enthusiastic about man reaching Mars commenting: ‘My schedule says, if we economise on certain areas and develop what we really need to develop, we can get to Mars by 2031. But we really need to get to a moon of Mars by 2025 first. And that I think we can do, but we can’t do that and go to our moon as well’.

Commenting on the interview, E&T Editor-in-Chief Dickon Ross said:’ The Apollo programme is mankind’s most outstanding engineering achievement and we should never under estimate it’s influence in inspiring future generations of engineers. And it’s great that the memory of the first manned lunar landing is still fresh in the public’s memory but extraordinary that so many people still don’t believe that Buzz walked on the moon 40 years ago’.

Notes to Editors

Engineering & Technology magazine is published fortnightly during the key working months (a total of 21 issues a year) and is sent to the whole membership of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, wherever they are in the world.

The BPA Audited 149,407 circulation is the largest of any B2B magazine in this sector.

Editor-in-Chief, Dickon Ross was named the Editor of the Business & Professional Magazine (non weekly) of the Year at the 2008 BSME Awards.

kn.theiet.org/magazine/index.cfm?origin=homepage

For more information please contact: Dickon Ross Editor-in-Chief Engineering & Technology t: +44-(0)1438-767397 e: dmross@theiet.org Andrew Burslem CMC PR t: +44-(0)207-924-7448 e: andrew@cmcpr.co.uk

Source: E&T Magazine

For more information please contact: Dickon Ross, Editor-in-Chief, Engineering & Technology, t: +44-(0)1438-767397, e: dmross at theiet.org. Andrew Burslem, CMC PR, t: +44-(0)207-924-7448, e: andrew at cmcpr.co.uk