Do you know who Mike Collins is?

I'm sure I can't be alone in this but until Wednesday night, when I went to see the new Moon landings documentary 'Apollo 11', I confess I had never even heard of him.

Perhaps it is a generational thing for anyone born after 1969 or too young to remember it, but for as long as I can remember I have known that Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon and that Buzz Aldrin was there too.

So I was surprised to discover that there was a third astronaut on that momentous mission - and even more shocked that this knowledge had until now escaped me.

To be fair, Mike Collins probably drew the shortest straw in the history of human exploration in that he piloted them all the way to the Moon, but never experienced the awe of actually standing on the lunar surface for himself.

READ MORE: Review - Apollo 11: the Inside Story

Instead, he spent 22 nerve-racking and solitary hours circling the Moon in the 'Columbia' mothership waiting for Armstrong and Aldrin to successfully blast back into orbit on the 'Eagle' so that he could pick them up and return to Earth.

It's bit like being with Columbus when he stumbled onto America - but staying behind to look after the ship.

Science, medicine and exploration are surely littered with unsung heroes and forgotten pioneers, and perhaps that has its advantages.

Collins, for example, was sheltered from the glare of publicity and enjoyed a happy marriage and family life, while Armstrong became a virtual recluse and Aldrin lapsed into alcoholism. Both also divorced.

But Collins' experience reminded me of one of Glasgow's own trailblazers who deserves to be a household name.

READ MORE: The pioneering Glasgow surgeon behind the world's first successful brain tumour op

In 1879, William Macewen - then just 28 - performed the world's first successful brain tumour removal at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, saving the life of 14-year-old Barbara Watson, from Campsie.

Again, I only heard of Macewen and his achievement for the first time in May while leafing through the programme for the Glasgow Science Festival.

July 27 will mark exactly 140 years since that landmark surgery, but - unlike the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings on July 20 - it will probably pass unnoticed.

It is all the more unfair because Macewen, a Glasgow University graduate who trained under antiseptic pioneer Joseph Lister, also had to fight for recognition in his own lifetime.

In the years after the operation, credit mistakenly went to Lister's London-based nephew Raymond Godlee after he removed a man's brain tumour in 1884 while the great and the good of neuroscience looked on, and national press - including the Glasgow Herald - wrongly hailed it as a 'world-first'.

READ MORE: World prepares to mark 50 years since man walked on Moon

Macewen, an 'outsider' Scot to these medical elites, saw his achievements downplayed and sidelined.

So, as both anniversaries approach, let's take a moment to remember the forgotten heroes who changed our world.