{"id":799047,"date":"2026-10-11T10:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799047\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T10:26:10","slug":"preston-teenager-watched-apollo-17-launch-with-neil-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/799047\/","title":{"rendered":"Preston teenager watched Apollo 17 launch with Neil Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After Gethings&#8217; exhibitions were photographed by the Lancashire Evening Post, his life changed forever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A few months after the photographs were published I received a letter out of the blue from the United States Embassy in London,&#8221; he recalled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It said &#8216;We have a very special project to discuss with you regarding the forthcoming Apollo 17 mission&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gethings was then told he was one of 16 UK students being invited for an interview at the embassy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One of the students was to be selected by Nasa for an all-expenses paid,19-day trip to watch Apollo 17&#8217;s launch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I didn&#8217;t hear anything for a couple of weeks,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I got the letter of congratulations inviting me on the trip I couldn&#8217;t believe it &#8211; it was amazing!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Gethings&#8217; exhibitions were photographed by the Lancashire Evening Post, his life changed forever. &#8220;A few months after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}