The Science Museum in London held a superb exhibition of artifacts from the Russian Space Programme – Cosmonauts. Its finale [pictured] was the dummy and cradle sent round the moon as they gave up their attempt to beat the American’s to land a man there in the 1960s.

Ironically, their Soyuz spacecraft is the safest and most successful people carrier of all time, and still flies to the ISS with cosmomauts and cargo. Their rocket engines are supplied to NASA, which needs their technology and engineering for their Atlas rockets.

So defeat it might be, but the next man in the moon, or woman, will be Russian, probably. As to Mars – well, Matt Damon has been………..