Speaking of the Guardian, that publication’s Karin Andreasson’s has a new article about Edward Makuka Nkoloso, a Don Quixote of the Age of Aquarius, who was the self-appointed leader of Zambia’s unlikely entry into the 1960s Space Race. He desired not only to go to the moon but to establish a Christian ministry on Mars. An excerpt:

In 1964, when Zambia gained its independence from the UK, Nkoloso, a science teacher, decided to prove that his country was just as important as the world’s leading nations. It was the height of the space race and he decided Zambia should take part. He designed a rocket and a catapult system to launch it, which he tested on Zambian Independence Day. He recruited 10 men and one woman as astronauts. He wanted the woman – and two cats – to be the first to walk on the moon.

Training took place on a farm near the capital, Lusaka. Nkoloso asked for £7m of funding from Unesco, but didn’t get it. That was one reason why the programme didn’t have a chance. Then the woman became pregnant by one of the other astronauts and her parents came to take her back to their village. And that marked the end of the space programme. People I have spoken to who met Nkoloso say he was very charismatic: a dreamer who took his project very seriously, maybe even with the same serious approach Nasa and the Soviet Union had.•