It was November 1969 and Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were household names worldwide; their first visit to Sydney drew a crowd of 2000 to the airport - and a police escort of 500 holding them back.

Jennifer Taylor, then a 12 year old schoolgirl, evaded the cops and snuck up into striking distance.

She had no idea a newspaper photographer had snapped the scene - until she saw the Sydney Morning Herald the next day.

Jennifer told a journalist she had written to NASA for advice as to what she needed to do to become an astronaut.

"But the replies are always addressed "dear sir" so next time I write I will ask them to correct this," she was quoted as saying.

Henry never got to space. But the Glen Innes resident will mark this Saturday July 20, fifty years since Apollo 11's famous mission to another world.

Just three Australians have ever flown in space, none women. But Jennifer Taylor, now Mrs Henry, credits the experience of meeting the astronauts as sparking a lifelong interest in science.

"They were real heroes, because when they went up there was no guarantee they were coming back," she said at her Glen Innes house, fifty years on.

"They left their family, their wives, their children and they went up.

"They had the right stuff."

She remembered watching Neil Armstrong climb down the lunar module on a very faint black and white TV in the school library at 12.56pm July 21 Australian time.

So the opportunity to meet the man in the flesh and give them a kiss was a huge thrill, she said.

Michael Collins, who spent much of the lunar mission on his own and out of contact, drawled "thank you".

Buzz Aldrin was "affable" and "warm", she said: "he took it well, he took the kiss well".

But Neil was more conservative and a bit shy.

"He knew he had been really welcome in Oz; that's what I wanted to get across, that we were so glad that they'd come to see us. They had the whole world to go and see and they included us!

"There's not many people who've got a photo of themselves kissing and shaking the hand of an astronaut!"

The astronauts flew out of Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport on the Presidential jet Air Force Two that day, November 2 1969, and continued on their grand tour of the world with a stopover in Guam.

Ms Henry became a Commonwealth public servant and had two kids before moving to Emmaville and then Glen Innes.

The famous photo was printed around the country, including the Canberra Times and Melbourne Age.