With the 50th anniversary of the moon landing just a few days away we’re starting to think back to names like Armstrong, Aldrin and Kennedy

One name you won’t be thinking about is Frank Malina. In fact even if you were to delve into the archives you might struggle to find mention of his name at all

So why has the founder of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory been denied his place in the story of American space flight?

Dr Fraser McDonald is a Lecturer in Historical Geography in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh and author of Escape From Earth: A Secret History of The Space Rocket.