Neil Armstrong

American astronaut ( 1930–2012 )

Neil Alden Armstrong ( August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012 ) was an american english astronaut and aeronautical engineer, and the first homo being to walk on the Moon. He was besides a naval aviator, screen fender, and university professor. Armstrong was born and raised in Wapakoneta, Ohio. A graduate of Purdue University, he studied aeronautical mastermind ; his college tuition was paid for by the U.S. Navy under the Holloway Plan. He became a midshipman in 1949 and a naval aviator the pursuit year. He saw military action in the Korean War, flying the Grumman F9F Panther from the aircraft carrier USS Essex. In September 1951, while making a low bombing run, Armstrong ‘s aircraft was damaged when it collided with an anti-aircraft cable, strung across a valley, which cut off a big part of one wing. Armstrong was forced to bail out. After the war, he completed his knight bachelor ‘s degree at Purdue and became a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( NACA ) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was the plan pilot burner on Century Series fighters and flew the north american X-15 seven times. He was besides a participant in the U.S. Air Force ‘s Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs.

Reading: Neil Armstrong

Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in the second group, which was selected in 1962. He made his first base spaceflight as command pilot burner of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA ‘s first civilian astronaut to fly in outer space. During this deputation with pilot burner David Scott, he performed the first dock of two spacecraft ; the mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his re-entry control fuel to stabilize a dangerous roll caused by a stay thruster. During training for Armstrong ‘s second and last spaceflight as commanding officer of Apollo 11, he had to eject from the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle moments before a crash. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Apollo 11 Lunar Module ( LM ) navigate Buzz Aldrin became the first people to land on the Moon, and the following day they spent two and a half hours outside the Lunar Module Eagle spacecraft while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo Command Module Columbia. When Armstrong first stepped onto the lunar airfoil, he excellently said : “ That ‘s one little step for [ a ] man, one giant star leap for world. ” It was broadcast alive to an estimated 530 million viewers global. Apollo 11 effectively proved US victory in the Space Race, by fulfilling a national finish proposed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy “ of landing a homo on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth ” before the end of the decade. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented him with the congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, and Armstrong and his former crewmates received a Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. After he resigned from NASA in 1971, Armstrong teach in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati until 1979. He served on the Apollo 13 accident investigation and on the Rogers Commission, which investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In 2012, Armstrong died due to complications resulting from coronary shunt surgery, at the age of 82 .

early liveliness

Armstrong was born near Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930, the son of Viola Louise ( née Engel ) and Stephen Koenig Armstrong. He was of german, Scots-Irish, and scots descent. [ 3 ] He had a younger sister, June, and a younger buddy, Dean. His don was an auditor for the Ohio state politics, [ 4 ] and the family moved around the country repeatedly, living in 16 towns over the future 14 years. Armstrong ‘s love for flying grew during this time, having started at the age of two when his beget took him to the Cleveland Air Races. When he was five or six, he experienced his inaugural airplane flight in Warren, Ohio, when he and his forefather took a ride in a Ford Trimotor ( besides known as the “ Tin Goose ” ). [ 6 ] The family ‘s final be active was in 1944 and took them back to Wapakoneta, where Armstrong attended Blume High School and took flying lessons at the Wapakoneta airfield. He earned a student trajectory certificate on his 16th birthday, then solo in August, all before he had a driver ‘s license. He was an active Boy Scout and earned the rank and file of Eagle Scout. As an pornographic, he was recognized by the Scouts with their Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] While flying toward the Moon on July 18, 1969, he sent his regards to attendees at the National Scout gala in Idaho. [ 12 ] Among the few personal items that he carried with him to the Moon and back was a World Scout Badge. [ 13 ] At historic period 17, in 1947, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was the second person in his kin to attend college. He was besides accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ), but he resolved to go to Purdue after watching a football game between the Purdue Boilermakers and the Ohio State Buckeyes at the Ohio Stadium in 1945, in which quarterback Bob DeMoss led the Boilermakers to a sound victory over the highly regard Buckeyes. [ 15 ] An uncle who attended MIT had besides advised him that he could receive a good department of education without going all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts. His college tutelage was paid for under the Holloway Plan. successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by two years of flight prepare and one class of service as an aviator in the U.S. Navy, then completion of the final two years of their bachelor ‘s degree. Armstrong did not take courses in naval science, nor did he join the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps .

Navy service

Ensign Neil Armstrong on May 23, 1952 Armstrong ‘s call-up from the Navy arrived on January 26, 1949, requiring him to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida for fledge educate with course 5-49. After passing the medical examinations, he became a midshipman on February 24, 1949. Flight educate was conducted in a union american SNJ flight simulator, in which he soloed on September 9, 1949. On March 2, 1950, he made his first gear aircraft carrier landing on USS Cabot, an accomplishment he considered comparable to his first base solo fledge. He was then sent to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas for training on the Grumman F8F Bearcat, culminating in a aircraft carrier landing on USS Wright. On August 16, 1950, Armstrong was informed by letter that he was a in full qualify naval aviator. His mother and sister attended his commencement ceremony on August 23, 1950. Armstrong was assigned to Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 7 ( FASRON 7 ) at NAS San Diego ( now known as NAS North Island ). On November 27, 1950, he was assigned to VF-51, an all-jet squadron, becoming its youngest military officer, and made his first flight in a jet, a Grumman F9F Panther, on January 5, 1951. He was promoted to ensign on June 5, 1951, and made his first jet carrier landing on USS Essex two days by and by. On June 28, 1951, Essex had set sail for Korea, with VF-51 aboard to act as ground-attack aircraft. VF-51 fly ahead to Naval Air Station Barbers Point in Hawaii, where it conducted fighter-bomber aim before rejoining the embark at the end of July. On August 29, 1951, Armstrong saw action in the Korean War as an escort for a photograph reconnaissance flat over Songjin. Five days by and by, on September 3, he flew armed reconnaissance over the primary fare and storage facilities south of the village of Majon-ni, west of Wonsan. According to Armstrong, he was making a low bombing run at 350 miles per hour ( 560 kilometers per hour ) when 6 feet ( 1.8 thousand ) of his wing was torn off after it collided with a cable that was strung across the hills as a dumbbell trap. He was flying 500 feet ( 150 meter ) above the ground when he hit it. While there was heavy anti-aircraft fire in the area, none hit Armstrong ‘s aircraft. An initial report to the command military officer of Essex said that Armstrong ‘s F9F Panther was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The reputation indicated he was trying to regain dominance and collided with a pole, which sliced off 2 feet ( 0.61 thousand ) of the Panther ‘s proper wing. far perversions of the narrative by different authors added that he was only 20 feet ( 6.1 m ) from the ground and that 3 feet ( 0.91 thousand ) of his wing was sheared off .
Armstrong flew the flat back to friendly district, but due to the loss of the aileron, expulsion was his only safe option. He intended to eject over urine and expect rescue by Navy helicopters, but his chute was blown binding over state. A jeep drive by a roommate from fledge school picked him up ; it is unknown what happened to the wreckage of his aircraft, F9F-2 BuNo 125122. In all, Armstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the breeze, a third base of them in January 1952, with the final mission on March 5, 1952. Of 492 U.S. Navy personnel killed in the Korean War, 27 of them were from Essex on this war cruise. Armstrong received the Air Medal for 20 fight missions, two gold stars for the future 40, the Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star, the National Defense Service Medal, and the United Nations Korea Medal. Armstrong ‘s regular commission was terminated on February 25, 1952, and he became an ensign in the United States Navy Reserve. On completion of his fight enlistment with Essex, he was assigned to a conveyance squadron, VR-32, in May 1952. He was released from active duty on August 23, 1952, but remained in the allow, and was promoted to lieutenant ( junior grade ) on May 9, 1953. [ 26 ] As a reservist, he continued to fly, with VF-724 at Naval Air Station Glenview in Illinois, and then, after moving to California, with VF-773 at Naval Air Station Los Alamitos. He remained in the military reserve for eight years, before resigning his commission on October 21, 1960. [ 26 ]

College years

After his serve with the Navy, Armstrong returned to Purdue. His previously earned good but not outstanding grades now improved, lifting his final Grade Point Average ( GPA ) to a respectable but not outstanding 4.8 out of 6.0. He pledged the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and lived in its brotherhood house. He wrote and co-directed two musicals as part of the all-student revue. The first was a interpretation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, co-directed with his girlfriend Joanne Alford from the Alpha Chi Omega sorority, with songs from the Walt Disney film, including “ Someday My Prince Will Come “ ; the second was titled The Land of Egelloc ( “ college ” spelled backwards ), with music from Gilbert and Sullivan but newfangled lyrics. He was chair of the Purdue Aero Flying Club, and flew the golf club ‘s aircraft, an Aeronca and a couple of Pipers, which were kept at nearby Aretz Airport in Lafayette, Indiana. Flying the Aeronca to Wapakoneta in 1954, he damaged it in a roughly landing in a farmer ‘s field, and it had to be hauled back to Lafayette on a preview. He was a baritone player in the Purdue All-American Marching Band. [ 29 ] Ten years by and by he was made an honorary extremity of Kappa Kappa Psi national set honorary fraternity. [ 30 ] Armstrong graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in January 1955. In 1970, he completed his master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California ( USC ). [ 31 ] He would finally be awarded honorary doctorates by several universities. [ 32 ] Armstrong met Janet Elizabeth Shearon, who was majoring in home economics, at a party hosted by Alpha Chi Omega. According to the couple, there was no real courtship, and neither could remember the claim circumstances of their engagement. They were married on January 28, 1956, at the Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. When he moved to Edwards Air Force Base, he lived in the knight bachelor quarters of the base, while Janet lived in the Westwood zone of Los Angeles. After one semester, they moved into a theater in Antelope Valley, near Edwards AFB. Janet did not finish her degree, a fact she regretted later in animation. The couple had three children : Eric, Karen, and Mark. In June 1961, Karen was diagnosed with a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a malignant tumor of the middle separate of her genius stalk. [ 35 ] roentgenogram treatment slowed its growth, but her health deteriorated to the point where she could no longer walk or talk. She died of pneumonia, related to her sabotage health, on January 28, 1962, aged two .

trial pilot burner

Following his graduation from Purdue, Armstrong became an experimental inquiry test fender. He applied at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( NACA ) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base. NACA had no open positions, and forwarded his application to the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, where Armstrong made his first base test escape on March 1, 1955. Armstrong ‘s stint at Cleveland lasted merely a couple of months before a placement at the High-Speed Flight Station became available, and he reported for work there on July 11, 1955 .
On his first day, Armstrong was tasked with piloting chase planes during releases of experimental aircraft from modified bombers. He besides flew the modified bombers, and on one of these missions had his first escape incidental at Edwards. On March 22, 1956, he was in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which was to air-drop a Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. He sat in the right navigate seat while the left-hand seat commander, Stan Butchart, flew the B-29. [ 40 ] As they climbed to 30,000 feet ( 9 kilometer ), the number-four engine stopped and the propeller began windmilling ( rotating freely ) in the airstream. Hitting the switch that would stop the propeller ‘s spin, Butchart found it slowed but then started spinning again, this time even faster than the others ; if it spun besides fast, it would break apart. Their aircraft needed to hold an airspeed of 210 miles per hour ( 338 kilometers per hour ) to launch its Skyrocket warhead, and the B-29 could not land with the Skyrocket attached to its abdomen. Armstrong and Butchart brought the aircraft into a nose-down position to increase accelerate, then launched the Skyrocket. At the clamant of launch, the number-four engine propeller disintegrated. Pieces of it damaged the number-three engine and hit the number-two engine. Butchart and Armstrong were forced to shut down the damaged number-three engine, along with the number-one engine, due to the torsion it created. They made a decelerate, circling lineage from 30,000 foot ( 9 kilometer ) using only the number-two engine, and landed safely. Armstrong served as project fly on Century Series fighters, including the north american english F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and the Convair F-106 Delta Dart. He besides flew the Douglas DC-3, Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, north american F-86 Sabre, McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, Douglas F5D-1 Skylancer, Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Boeing B-47 Stratojet and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the Parasev paraglider research vehicle broadcast. Over his career, he flew more than 200 unlike models of aircraft. [ 31 ] His first flight in a rocket-powered aircraft was on August 15, 1957, in the Bell X-1 B, to an altitude of 11.4 miles ( 18.3 kilometer ). On landing, the ill designed nose landing gearing failed, as had happened on about a twelve former flights of the Bell X-1B. He flew the north american X-15 seven times, including the first flight with the Q-ball system, the first flight of the act 3 X-15 airframe, and the first flight of the MH-96 adaptive flight control arrangement. [ 44 ] He became an employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ) when it was established on October 1, 1958, absorbing NACA. [ 46 ] Armstrong was involved in several incidents that went down in Edwards folklore or were chronicled in the memoirs of colleagues. During his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, Armstrong was testing the MH-96 see system when he flew to a stature of over 207,000 feet ( 63 kilometer ) ( the highest he flew before Gemini 8 ). He held up the aircraft nose for excessively long during its descent to demonstrate the MH-96 ‘s g-limiting performance, and the X-15 ballooned back up to around 140,000 feet ( 43 kilometer ). He flew past the landing field at Mach 3 at over 100,000 feet ( 30 kilometer ) in altitude, and ended up 40 miles ( 64 kilometer ) confederacy of Edwards. After sufficient descent, he turned back toward the landing sphere, and landed, good missing Joshua trees at the confederacy end. It was the longest X-15 flight in both flight fourth dimension and length of the grind track .
Armstrong and X-15-1 after a research flight in 1960 Fellow astronaut Michael Collins wrote that of the X-15 pilots Armstrong “ had been considered one of the weaker stick-and-rudder men, but the identical best when it came to understanding the machine ‘s design and how it operated ”. Many of the trial pilots at Edwards praised Armstrong ‘s technology ability. Milt Thompson said he was “ the most technically able of the early X-15 pilots ”. Bill Dana said Armstrong “ had a beware that absorbed things like a sponge ”. Those who flew for the Air Force tended to have a unlike opinion, particularly people like Chuck Yeager and Pete Knight, who did not have engineering degrees. Knight said that pilot-engineers flew in a way that was “ more mechanical than it is flying ”, and gave this as the reason why some pilot-engineers got into trouble : Their flying skills did not come naturally. Armstrong made seven flights in the X-15 between November 30, 1960, and July 26, 1962. He reached a top amphetamine of Mach 5.74 ( 3,989 miles per hour, 6,420 kilometers per hour ) in the X-15-1, and left the Flight Research Center with a total of 2,400 flying hours. On April 24, 1962, Armstrong flew for the only time with Yeager. Their job, flying a T-33, was to evaluate Smith Ranch Dry Lake in Nevada for manipulation as an hand brake landing web site for the X-15. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote that he knew the lake bed was inapplicable for landings after holocene rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyhow. As they attempted a parlous, the wheels became cling and they had to wait for rescue. As Armstrong told the narrative, Yeager never tried to talk him out of it and they made a first successful landing on the east side of the lake. then Yeager told him to try again, this time a sting slower. On the second down, they became stick, provoking Yeager to fits of laugh. On May 21, 1962, Armstrong was involved in the “ Nellis Affair ”. He was sent in an F-104 to inspect Delamar Dry Lake in southerly Nevada, again for emergency landings. He misjudged his altitude and did not realize that the landing gear had not in full extended. As he touched down, the landing gear began to retract ; Armstrong applied full moon world power to abort the landing, but the adaxial fin and landing gear door struck the ground, damaging the radio receiver and releasing hydraulic fluid. Without radio communication, Armstrong flew south to Nellis Air Force Base, past the operate tower, and waggled his wings, the signal for a no-radio approach. The passing of hydraulic fluid caused the tailhook to release, and upon landing, he caught the arresting wire attached to an anchor chain, and dragged the chain along the runway. It took thirty minutes to clear the runway and carriage another arresting cable television. Armstrong telephoned Edwards and asked for person to collect him. Milt Thompson was sent in an F-104B, the only roadster available, but a plane Thompson had never flown. With big difficulty, Thompson made it to Nellis, where a strong crosswind caused a unvoiced down and the leave main tire suffered a blowout. The runway was again closed to clear it, and Bill Dana was sent to Nellis in a T-33, but he about landed long. The Nellis basis operations office then decided that to avoid any further problems, it would be best to find the three NASA pilots grind transportation back to Edwards .

Astronaut career

Armstrong in an early Gemini space suit In June 1958, Armstrong was selected for the U.S. Air Force ‘s Man In Space Soonest course of study, but the Advanced Research Projects Agency ( ARPA ) canceled its support on August 1, 1958, and on November 5, 1958, it was superseded by Project Mercury, a civilian project run by NASA. As a NASA civilian test original, Armstrong was ineligible to become one of its astronauts at this time, as choice was restricted to military test pilots. [ 55 ] In November 1960, he was chosen as character of the pilot adviser group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military outer space plane under growth by Boeing for the U.S. Air Force, and on March 15, 1962, he was selected by the U.S. Air Force as one of seven pilot-engineers who would fly the X-20 when it got off the design control panel. In April 1962, NASA sought applications for the second base group of NASA astronauts for Project Gemini, a proposed two-man spacecraft. This time, survival was open to qualified civilian examination pilots. Armstrong visited the Seattle World ‘s Fair in May 1962 and attended a conference there on quad exploration that was co-sponsored by NASA. After he returned from Seattle on June 4, he applied to become an astronaut. His application arrived about a week past the June 1, 1962, deadline, but Dick Day, a flight simulator technical with whom Armstrong had worked closely at Edwards, saw the late arrival of the application and slipped it into the down before anyone noticed. At Brooks Air Force Base at the end of June, Armstrong underwent a medical examination that many of the applicants described as irritating and at times apparently pointless. NASA ‘s Director of Flight Crew Operations, Deke Slayton, called Armstrong on September 13, 1962, and asked whether he would be interest in joining the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of what the press dubbed “ the New Nine “ ; without hesitation, Armstrong said yes. The selections were keep privy until three days late, although newspaper reports had circulated since earlier that year that he would be selected as the “ inaugural civilian astronaut ”. Armstrong was one of two civilian pilots selected for this group ; the other was Elliot See, another early naval aviator. [ 63 ] NASA selected the second group that, compared with the Mercury Seven astronauts, were younger, and had more impressive academic credentials. Collins wrote that Armstrong was by far the most know test fender in the Astronaut Corps .

Gemini broadcast

Gemini 5

On February 8, 1965, Armstrong and Elliot See were picked as the stand-in crew for Gemini 5, with Armstrong as commander, supporting the choice gang of Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad. The mission ‘s purpose was to practice space rendezvous and to develop procedures and equipment for a weeklong flight, all of which would be required for a deputation to the Moon. With two early flights ( Gemini 3 and Gemini 4 ) in homework, six crews were competing for simulator time, so Gemini 5 was postponed. It finally lifted off on August 21. Armstrong and See watched the launch at Cape Kennedy, then flew to the Manned Spacecraft Center ( MSC ) in Houston. The deputation was generally successful, despite a trouble with the fuel cells that prevented a rendezvous. Cooper and Conrad practiced a “ phantom rendezvous ”, carrying out the maneuver without a target .

Gemini 8

The crew for Gemini 8 were assigned on September 20, 1965. Under the normal rotation system, the backup crew for one mission became the prime gang for the third base mission after, but Slayton designated David Scott as the original of Gemini 8. Scott was the inaugural member of the third base group of astronauts, who was selected on October 18, 1963, to receive a prime crew grant. [ 71 ] See was designated to command Gemini 9. Henceforth, each Gemini mission was commanded by a member of Armstrong ‘s group, with a extremity of Scott ‘s group as the pilot. Conrad would be Armstrong ‘s stand-in this prison term, and Richard F. Gordon Jr. his pilot burner. Armstrong became the first american civilian in quad. ( Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union had become the first civilian—and beginning woman—nearly three years earlier aboard Vostok 6 when it launched on June 16, 1963. [ 72 ] ) Armstrong would besides be the last of his group to fly in space, as See died in a T-38 crash on February 28, 1966, that besides took the life sentence of crewmate Charles Bassett. They were replaced by the stand-in gang of Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, while Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin moved up from the backup crowd of Gemini 10 to become the backup for Gemini 9, and would finally fly Gemini 12. Gemini 8 launched on March 16, 1966. It was the most complex mission even, with a rendezvous and docking with an uncrewed Agena target vehicle, and the plan second gear american english space walk ( EVA ) by Scott. The mission was planned to end 75 hours and 55 orbits. After the Agena lifted off at 10:00:00 EST, the Titan II rocket carrying Armstrong and Scott ignited at 11:41:02 EST, putting them into an scope from which they chased the Agena. They achieved the first-ever dock between two spacecraft. [ 77 ] Contact with the crowd was intermittent due to the miss of tracking stations covering their entire orbits. While out of contact with the ground, the dock spacecraft began to roll, and Armstrong attempted to correct this with the Gemini ‘s Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System ( OAMS ). Following the earlier advice of Mission Control, they undocked, but the bun increased dramatically until they were turning about once per moment, indicating a problem with Gemini ‘s attitude control. Armstrong engaged the Reentry Control System ( RCS ) and turned off the OAMS. Mission rules dictated that once this system was turned on, the spacecraft had to reenter at the future possible opportunity. It was late thought that damaged wiring caused one of the thrusters to stick in the on position. [ 78 ]
recovery of Gemini 8 from the western Pacific Ocean ; Armstrong sitting to the right A few people in the Astronaut Office, including Walter Cunningham, felt that Armstrong and Scott “ had botched their beginning deputation ”. There was speculation that Armstrong could have salvaged the mission if he had turned on only one of the two RCS rings, saving the other for mission objectives. These criticisms were baseless ; no malfunction procedures had been written, and it was possible to turn on merely both RCS rings, not one or the early. Gene Kranz wrote, “ The crew reacted as they were trained, and they reacted faulty because we trained them ill-timed. ” The mission planners and controllers had failed to realize that when two spacecraft were docked, they must be considered one spacecraft. Kranz considered this the deputation ‘s most crucial moral. Armstrong was depressed that the mission was cut short, canceling most mission objectives and robbing Scott of his EVA. The Agena was by and by reused as a docking aim by Gemini 10. Armstrong and Scott received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, [ 84 ] [ 85 ] and the Air Force awarded Scott the Distinguished Flying Cross arsenic well. [ 86 ] Scott was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and Armstrong received a $ 678 raise in wage to $ 21,653 a class ( equivalent to $ 172,713 in 2020 ), making him NASA ‘s highest-paid astronaut .

Gemini 11

In Armstrong ‘s final assignment in the Gemini course of study, he was the back-up Command Pilot for Gemini 11. Having trained for two flights, Armstrong was quite knowledgeable about the systems and took on a teaching function for the cub stand-in Pilot, William Anders. The launch was on September 12, 1966, [ 88 ] with Conrad and Gordon on board, who successfully completed the mission objectives, while Armstrong served as a condensation communicator ( CAPCOM ). Following the flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Armstrong and his wife to take region in a 24-day grace tour of South America. besides on the enlistment, which took in 11 countries and 14 major cities, were Dick Gordon, George Low, their wives, and other government officials. In Paraguay, Armstrong greeted dignitaries in their local speech, Guarani ; in Brazil he talked about the exploits of the Brazilian-born air travel pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont .

Apollo program

On January 27, 1967—the day of the Apollo 1 fire —Armstrong was in Washington, D.C. with Cooper, Gordon, Lovell and Scott Carpenter for the sign of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty. The astronauts chatted with the assemble dignitaries until 18:45, when Carpenter went to the airport, and the others returned to the Georgetown Inn, where they each found messages to earphone the MSC. During these calls, they learned of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in the displace. Armstrong and the group spent the rest of the night drink thwart and discussing what had happened. On April 5, 1967, the like day the Apollo 1 probe released its final examination report, Armstrong and 17 other astronauts gathered for a meet with Slayton. The first thing Slayton said was, “ The guys who are going to fly the first gear lunar missions are the guys in this room. ” According to Cernan, alone Armstrong showed no reaction to the affirmation. To Armstrong it came as no surprise—the room was full of veterans of Project Gemini, the only people who could fly the lunar missions. Slayton talked about the design missions and named Armstrong to the stand-in crew for Apollo 9, which at that stage was planned as a medium Earth orbit test of the combine lunar module and command and serve module. The crew was officially assigned on November 20, 1967. For crewmates, Armstrong was assigned Lovell and Aldrin, from Gemini 12. After blueprint and fabrication delays of the lunar module ( LM ), Apollo 8 and 9 swapped prime and accompaniment crews. Based on the normal crew rotation, Armstrong would command Apollo 11, with one change : Collins on the Apollo 8 crew began experiencing trouble with his legs. Doctors diagnosed the problem as a bony emergence between his fifth and sixth vertebra, requiring surgery. Lovell took his identify on the Apollo 8 crew, and, when Collins recovered, he joined Armstrong ‘s crew .
To give the astronauts practice piloting the LM on its descent, NASA commissioned Bell Aircraft to build two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles ( LLRV ), late augmented with three Lunar Landing Training Vehicles ( LLTV ). Nicknamed the “ Flying Bedsteads ”, they simulated the Moon ‘s one-sixth gravity using a fanjet engine to support five-sixths of the craft ‘s weight. On May 6, 1968, 100 feet ( 30 megabyte ) above the labor, Armstrong ‘s controls started to degrade and the LLRV began rolling. He ejected safely before the fomite struck the ground and burst into flames. by and by analysis suggested that if he had ejected half a second by and by, his parachute would not have opened in fourth dimension. His alone injury was from biting his tongue. The LLRV was wholly destroyed. even though he was about killed, Armstrong maintained that without the LLRV and LLTV, the lunar landings would not have been successful, as they gave commanders essential experience in piloting the lunar land trade. In addition to the LLRV discipline, NASA began lunar land simulator train after Apollo 10 was completed. Aldrin and Armstrong trained for a assortment of scenarios that could develop during a real lunar landing. They besides received briefings from geologists at NASA .

Apollo 11

After Armstrong served as backup commanding officer for Apollo 8, Slayton offered him the post of commander of Apollo 11 on December 23, 1968, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. According to Armstrong ‘s 2005 biography, Slayton told him that although the plan crowd was Commander Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, he was offering Armstrong the opportunity to replace Aldrin with Jim Lovell. After thinking it over for a day, Armstrong told Slayton he would stick with Aldrin, as he had no difficulty working with him and thought Lovell deserved his own command. Replacing Aldrin with Lovell would have made Lovell the lunar module pilot burner, unofficially the lowest rate member, and Armstrong could not justify placing Lovell, the commander of Gemini 12, in the number 3 position of the crew. The crew of Apollo 11 was assigned on January 9, 1969, as Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, with Lovell, Anders, and Fred Haise as the backup crew. According to Chris Kraft, a March 1969 meeting among Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in part because NASA management saw him as a person who did not have a bombastic ego. A urge conference on April 14, 1969, gave the purpose of the LM cabin as the reason for Armstrong ‘s being first ; the hatch opened inwards and to the correct, making it unmanageable for the LM fender, on the right-hand side, to exit first. At the time of their meeting, the four men did not know about the hatch retainer. The first gear cognition of the meet outside the minor group came when Kraft wrote his book. Methods of circumventing this trouble existed, but it is not known if these were considered at the time. Slayton added, “ second, equitable on a pure protocol basis, I figured the air force officer ought to be the first guy out … I changed it adenine soon as I found they had the fourth dimension line that showed that. Bob Gilruth approved my decision. ”

voyage to the Moon

A Saturn V rocket launched Apollo 11 from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, at 13:32:00 UTC ( 09:32:00 EDT local time ). Armstrong ‘s wife Janet and two sons watched from a yacht moored on the Banana River. During the launch, Armstrong ‘s affection rate peaked at 110 beats per infinitesimal. He found the first stage the loudest, much noisier than the Gemini 8 Titan II launch. The Apollo command module was relatively roommate compared with the Gemini spacecraft. none of the Apollo 11 crowd suffered space illness, as some members of previous crews had. Armstrong was particularly gladiolus about this, as he had been prone to apparent motion sickness as a child and could experience nausea after long periods of aerobatics .
Armstrong in the lunar faculty after the completion of the EVA Apollo 11 ‘s aim was to land safely on the Moon, preferably than to touch down at a precise location. Three minutes into the lunar descent, Armstrong noted that craters were passing about two seconds besides early, which meant the Lunar Module Eagle would probably touch down several miles ( kilometres ) beyond the plan landing zone. As the Eagle ‘s landing radar acquired the open, respective calculator erroneousness alarms sounded. The first base was a code 1202 alarm, and even with their across-the-board prepare, neither Armstrong nor Aldrin knew what this code think of. They promptly received bible from CAPCOM Charles Duke in Houston that the alarms were not a concern ; the 1202 and 1201 alarms were caused by executive overflows in the lunar module guidance computer. In 2007, Aldrin said the overflows were caused by his own counter-checklist choice of leaving the docking radar on during the landing process, causing the calculator to process unnecessary radar data. When it did not have adequate prison term to execute all tasks, the computer dropped the lower-priority ones, triggering the alarms. Aldrin said he decided to leave the radar on in case an abort was necessity when re-docking with the Apollo control faculty ; he did not realize it would cause the process overflows .
Armstrong lands the Lunar Module Eagle on the Moon, July 20, 1969 When Armstrong noticed they were heading toward a bring area that seemed insecure, he took manual master of the LM and attempted to find a safer area. This took longer than expected, and longer than most simulations had taken. For this reason, Mission Control was concerned that the LM was running low on fuel. On land, Aldrin and Armstrong believed they had 40 seconds of fuel forget, including the 20 seconds ‘ worth which had to be saved in the consequence of an abort. During train, Armstrong had, on several occasions, landed with fewer than 15 seconds of fuel ; he was besides confident the LM could survive a fall of up to 50 feet ( 15 meter ). Post-mission analysis showed that at touchdown there were 45 to 50 seconds of propellant bite time left. The land on the surface of the Moon occurred several seconds after 20:17:40 coordinated universal time on July 20, 1969. [ 119 ] One of three 67-inch ( 170 centimeter ) probes attached to three of the LM ‘s four legs made contact with the surface, a empanel light in the LM illuminated, and Aldrin called out, “ Contact light. ” Armstrong shut the engine off and said, “ Shutdown. ” As the LM settled onto the open, Aldrin said, “ Okay, engine diaphragm ” ; then they both called out some post-landing checklist items. After a 10-second pause, Duke acknowledged the land with, “ We copy you down, Eagle. ” Armstrong confirmed the land to Mission Control and the world with the words, “ Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. ” Aldrin and Armstrong celebrated with a bracing handshake and dab on the back. They then returned to the checklist of eventuality tasks, should an emergency liftoff become necessary. [ 120 ] [ 121 ] [ 122 ] After Armstrong confirmed touch toss off, Duke re-acknowledged, adding a gossip about the escape gang ‘s stand-in : “ Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the land. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We ‘re breathing again. Thanks a lot. ” During the land, Armstrong ‘s heart rate ranged from 100 to 150 beats per moment .

foremost Moon walk

Armstrong describes the lunar come on
The flight plan called for a crew stay period before leaving the module, but Armstrong asked for this be moved to earlier in the even, Houston time. When he and Aldrin were fix to go external, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened, and Armstrong made his way down the run. At the buttocks of the ladder Armstrong said, “ I ‘m going to step off the LM [ lunar module ] now ”. He turned and set his leave kick on the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC July 21, 1969, then said, “ That ‘s one minor step for [ a ] valet, one giant leap for world. ” [ 126 ] The claim clock of Armstrong ‘s first mistreat on the Moon is ill-defined. [ 127 ] armstrong prepared his celebrated epigram on his own. [ 128 ] In a post-flight press conference, he said that he chose the words “ just prior to leaving the LM. ” [ 129 ] In a 1983 interview in Esquire cartridge holder, he explained to George Plimpton : “ I constantly knew there was a good opportunity of being able to return to Earth, but I thought the chances of a successful touch down on the moonlight surface were about even money—fifty–fifty … Most people do n’t realize how difficult the mission was. So it did n’t seem to me there was a lot point in think of something to say if we ‘d have to abort down. ” [ 128 ] In 2012, his buddy Dean Armstrong said that Neil showed him a draft of the credit line months before the launch. [ 130 ] Historian Andrew Chaikin, who interviewed Armstrong in 1988 for his book A Man on the Moon, disputed that Armstrong claimed to have conceived the line during the mission. [ 131 ] Recordings of Armstrong ‘s transmission do not provide attest for the indefinite article “ a ” before “ man ”, though NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static obscured it. Armstrong stated he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, he finally conceded he must have dropped the “ a ”. [ 126 ] He by and by said he “ would hope that history would grant me allowance for dropping the syllable and understand that it was surely intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been ”. There have since been claims and counter-claims about whether acoustic analysis of the record reveals the presence of the missing “ a ” ; [ 126 ] [ 133 ] Peter Shann Ford, an australian calculator programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did say “ a man ”, but the “ a ” was inaudible ascribable to the limitations of communications engineering of the time. [ 126 ] [ 134 ] [ 135 ] Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong ‘s empower biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis. [ 136 ] Armstrong found Ford ‘s psychoanalysis “ persuasive. ” [ 137 ] [ 138 ] Linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman wrote of their agnosticism of Ford ‘s claims on the blog Language Log. [ 139 ] A 2016 peer-reviewed sketch again concluded Armstrong had included the article. [ 140 ] NASA ‘s transcript continues to show the “ a ” in parentheses. [ 141 ] When Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast exist by the BBC and many early stations worldwide. An calculate 530 million people viewed the event, [ 142 ] 20 percentage out of a worldly concern population of approximately 3.6 billion. [ 143 ] [ 144 ]

q : Did you misspeak ? A : There is n’t any means of know. q : respective sources say you did. A : I mean, there is n’t any way of my know. When I listen to the tape, I ca n’t hear the ‘a ‘, but that does n’t mean it was n’t there, because that was the fastest voice always built. There was no mike-switch — it was a voice-operated key or VOX. In a helmet you find you lose a batch of syllables. sometimes a short syllable like ‘a ‘ might not be transmitted. however, when I listen to it, I ca n’t hear it. But the ‘a ‘ is implied, so I ‘m felicitous if they just put it in parentheses .

Omni, June 1982, p. 126

return to Earth

The Apollo 11 crowd and President Nixon during the post-mission quarantine period After they re-entered the LM, the think up was closed and sealed. While preparing for liftoff, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that, in their bulky distance suits, they had broken the ignition substitution for the ascent engine ; using part of a pen, they pushed in the tour surf to start the launch sequence. The Eagle then continued to its rendezvous in lunar sphere, where it docked with Columbia, the command and service module. The three astronauts returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, to be picked up by the USS Hornet. [ 154 ] After being released from an 18-day quarantine to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the gang was feted across the United States and around the universe as region of a 38-day “ giant Leap ” tour. [ 155 ] New York City ticker record parade, August 13, 1969 The go began on August 13, when the three astronauts spoke and rode in ticker-tape parades in their honor in New York and Chicago, with an estimated six million attendees. [ 156 ] [ 157 ] On the same evening an official department of state dinner was held in Los Angeles to celebrate the fledge, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, the Chief Justice of the United States, and ambassadors from 83 nations. President Nixon and Vice President Agnew presented each astronaut with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. [ 156 ] [ 158 ] After the tour Armstrong took separate in Bob Hope ‘s 1969 USO indicate, primarily to Vietnam. In May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union to present a talk at the 13th annual conference of the International Committee on Space Research ; after arriving in Leningrad from Poland, he traveled to Moscow where he met Premier Alexei Kosygin. Armstrong was the first westerly to see the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 and was given a enlistment of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, which he described as “ a bit victorian in nature ”. At the end of the day, he was surprised to view a delayed television of the launching of Soyuz 9 as it had not occurred to Armstrong that the mission was taking place, even though Valentina Tereshkova had been his horde and her husband, Andriyan Nikolayev, was on control panel .

life after Apollo

Teaching

shortly after Apollo 11, Armstrong stated that he did not plan to fly in space again. [ 162 ] He was appointed Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology at ARPA, served in the position for a year, then resigned from it and NASA in 1971. He accepted a teach position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, [ 164 ] having chosen Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater Purdue, because Cincinnati had a belittled aerospace department, and said he hoped the staff there would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship with alone a USC master ‘s degree. [ 166 ] He began his master ‘s academic degree while stationed at Edwards years before, and completed it after Apollo 11 by presenting a report on respective aspects of Apollo, alternatively of a dissertation on the pretense of hypersonic escape. At Cincinnati, Armstrong was University Professor of Aerospace Engineering. He took a heavy teach cargo, taught congress of racial equality classes, and created two graduate-level classes : aircraft design and experimental escape mechanics. He was considered a well teacher, and a tough grader. His inquiry activities during this time did not involve his work at NASA, as he did not want to give the appearance of discrimination ; he late regretted the decisiveness. After teaching for eight years, Armstrong resigned in 1980. When the university changed from an freelancer municipal university to a country school, bureaucracy increased. He did not want to be a partially of the faculty corporate bargain group, so he decided to teach half-time. According to Armstrong, he had the like amount of work but received half his wage. In 1979, less than 10 % of his income came from his university wage. Employees at the university did not know why he left .

NASA commissions

In 1970, after an explosion aboard Apollo 13 aborted its lunar landing, Armstrong was part of Edgar Cortright ‘s probe of the mission. He produced a detail chronology of the flight. He determined that a 28-volt thermostat switch in an oxygen tank, which was supposed to have been replaced with a 65-volt translation, led to the explosion. Cortright ‘s report recommended the entire tank be redesigned at a cost of $ 40 million. many NASA managers, including Armstrong, opposed the recommendation, since alone the thermostat interchange had caused the problem. They lost the controversy and the tanks were redesigned. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan asked Armstrong to join the Rogers Commission investigating the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Armstrong was made frailty chair of the committee, and held private interviews with contacts he had developed over the years to help determine the cause of the catastrophe. He helped limit the committee ‘s recommendations to nine, believing that if there were excessively many, NASA would not act on them .
Michael Collins, President George W. Bush, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin during celebrations of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Apollo 11 escape, July 21, 2004 Armstrong was appointed to a fourteen-member commission by President Reagan to develop a plan for american civilian spaceflight in the twenty-first century. The commission was chaired by former NASA administrator Dr. Thomas O. Paine, with whom Armstrong had worked during the Apollo plan. The group published a book titled Pioneering the Space Frontier: The Report on the National Commission on Space, recommending a permanent lunar base by 2006, and sending people to Mars by 2015. The recommendations were largely ignored, overshadowed by the Challenger catastrophe. Armstrong and his wife attended the memorial service for the victims of the Space Shuttle Columbia calamity in 2003, at the invitation of President George W. Bush .

business activities

After Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, he acted as a spokesman for several businesses. The inaugural company to successfully approach him was Chrysler, for whom he appeared in advertise starting in January 1979. Armstrong thought they had a strong technology division, and they were in fiscal trouble. He later acted as a spokesman for other american english companies, including general Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. He acted as a spokesman for only american companies. In addition to his duties as a spokesman, he besides served on the board of directors of respective companies. The first gear company board Armstrong joined was Gates Learjet, chairing their technical committee. He flew their modern and experimental jets and even set a climb and altitude commemorate for business jets. Armstrong became a member of Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company ‘s board in 1973. They were interest in nuclear power and wanted to increase the company ‘s technical foul competence. He served on the board of Taft Broadcasting, besides based in Cincinnati. Armstrong joined Thiokol ‘s board in 1989, after he was vice-chair of the Rogers Commission ; the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed due to a trouble with the Thiokol-manufactured solid rocket boosters. When Armstrong left the University of Cincinnati, he became the president of Cardwell International Ltd., a company that manufactured drill rigs. He served on extra aerospace boards, inaugural United Airlines in 1978, and later Eaton Corporation in 1980. He was asked to chair the dining table of directors for a subordinate of Eaton, AIL Systems. He chaired the board through the company ‘s 2000 fusion with EDO Corporation, until his retirement in 2002. [ 175 ]

North Pole expedition

In 1985, professional excursion leader Mike Dunn organized a trip to take men he deemed the “ greatest explorers ” to the North Pole. The group included Armstrong, Edmund Hillary, Hillary ‘s son Peter, Steve Fossett, and Patrick Morrow. They arrived at the Pole on April 6, 1985. Armstrong said he was curious to see what it looked like from the ground, as he had seen it entirely from the Moon. [ 176 ] He did not inform the media of the trip, preferring to keep it secret .

Public profile

Armstrong in 1999 Armstrong ‘s class described him as a “ reluctant american hero ”. [ 178 ] [ 179 ] [ 180 ] He kept a gloomy profile later in his life, leading to the impression that he was a hermit. [ 181 ] [ 182 ] Recalling Armstrong ‘s humility, John Glenn, the first american to orbit Earth, told CNN : “ [ Armstrong ] did n’t feel that he should be out huckstering himself. He was a humble person, and that ‘s the way he remained after his lunar escape, vitamin a well as earlier. ” [ 183 ] Armstrong turned down most requests for interviews and populace appearances. Michael Collins said in his reserve Carrying the Fire that when Armstrong moved to a dairy farm to become a college professor, it was like he “ retreated to his castle and pulled up the drawbridge ”. Armstrong found this amusing, and said, “ … those of us that live out in the hinterlands think that people that live inside the Beltway are the ones that have the problems. ” Andrew Chaikin says in A Man on the Moon that Armstrong kept a first gear profile but was not a recluse, citing his engagement in interviews, advertisements for Chrysler, and hosting a cable television series. between 1991 and 1993, he hosted First Flights with Neil Armstrong, an air travel history objective series on A & E. In 2010, Armstrong voiced the character of Dr. Jack Morrow in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, [ 186 ] an inspire educational sci-fi gamble film initiated by JPL/NASA through a grant from Jet Propulsion Lab. [ 187 ] Armstrong guarded the consumption of his name, prototype, and celebrated quote. When it was launched in 1981, MTV wanted to use his quote in its station identification, with the american flag replaced with the MTV logo, but he refused the habit of his voice and likeness. [ 188 ] He sued Hallmark Cards in 1994, when they used his list, and a recording of the “ one belittled step ” quote, in a Christmas decoration without his license. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, which Armstrong donated to Purdue. [ 190 ] For many years, he wrote letters congratulating new Eagle Scouts on their skill, but decided to quit the rehearse in the 1990s because he felt the letters should be written by people who knew the scout. ( In 2003, he received 950 congratulation requests. ) This contributed to the myth of his reclusiveness. Armstrong used to autograph everything except first day covers. Around 1993, he found out his signatures were being sold on-line, and that most of them were forgeries, and stopped giving autograph. [ 182 ]

personal life

Armstrong public speaking in February 2012 on the fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn ‘s beginning spaceflight Some early astronauts, including Glenn and Harrison Schmitt, sought political careers after leaving NASA. Armstrong was approached by groups from both the democratic and republican parties, but declined the offers. He supported states ‘ rights and opposed the U.S. work as the “ world ‘s policeman ”. When Armstrong applied at a local anesthetic Methodist church to lead a Boy Scout troop in the late 1950s, he gave his religious affiliation as “ deist “. His mother late said that his religious views caused her grief and distress in belated animation, as she was more religious. Upon his restitution from the Moon, Armstrong gave a manner of speaking in movement of the U.S. Congress in which he thanked them for giving him the opportunity to see some of the “ grandest views of the Creator ”. [ 195 ] In the early 1980s, he was the subject of a hoax claim that he converted to Islam after hearing the visit to prayer while walking on the Moon. indonesian singer Suhaemi wrote a song called “ Gema Suara Adzan di Bulan ” ( “ The Resonant Sound of the Call to Prayer on the Moon ” ) which described Armstrong ‘s supposed conversion, and the song was widely discussed by Jakarta news outlets in 1983. alike fraud stories were seen in Egypt and Malaysia. In March 1983, the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a message to embassies and consulates in Muslim countries saying that Armstrong had not converted to Islam. The fraud surfaced occasionally for the future three decades. part of the confusion arose from the similarity between the names of the country of Lebanon, which has a majority Muslim population, and Armstrong ‘s longtime residence in Lebanon, Ohio. In 1972, Armstrong visited the scottish town of Langholm, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong. He was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the township his home. [ 199 ] To entertain the crowd, the Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed antediluvian 400-year-old jurisprudence that required him to hang any Armstrong witness in the town. Armstrong flew easy aircraft for joy. He enjoyed gliders and before the moon flight had earned a gold badge with two diamonds from the International Gliding Commission. He continued to fly engineless aircraft good into his 70 ‘s. [ 201 ] While working on his farm in November 1978, Armstrong jumped off the rear of his ingrain truck and caught his wedding hoop in its roulette wheel, tearing the tiptoe off his leave resound finger. He collected the sever tip, packed it in ice, and had surgeons reattach it at the jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1991, he suffered a meek heart attack while skiing with friends at Aspen, Colorado. Armstrong and his first gear wife, Janet, separated in 1990 and divorced in 1994 after 38 years of marriage. [ 204 ] [ 205 ] He met his second wife, Carol Held Knight, at a golf tournament in 1992, when they were seated together at breakfast. She said little to Armstrong, but he called her two weeks belated to ask what she was doing. She replied that she was cutting down a cherry tree, and he arrived at her house 35 minutes late to help. They were married in Ohio on June 12, 1994, and had a second ceremony at San Ysidro Ranch in California. They lived in Indian Hill, Ohio. [ 206 ] Through his marriage to Carol, he was the father-in-law of future New York Mets general director Brodie Van Wagenen. In May 2005, Armstrong became involved in a legal dispute with Mark Sizemore, his barber of 20 years. After cutting Armstrong ‘s hair’s-breadth, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $ 3,000 without Armstrong ‘s cognition. [ 208 ] Armstrong threatened legal legal action against Sizemore unless he returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong ‘s choose. Sizemore, ineffective to retrieve the hair, donated the proceeds to jacob’s ladder. [ 210 ]

Illness and death

Photograph of Armstrong as a male child at his family memorial serve in Indian Hill, Ohio, near Cincinnati, on August 31, 2012 Armstrong undergo bypass surgery on August 7, 2012, to relieve coronary artery disease. [ 211 ] Although he was reportedly recovering well, [ 212 ] he developed complications in the hospital and died on August 25, in Cincinnati, Ohio, twenty days after his 82nd birthday. [ 213 ] [ 214 ] The White House released a statement in which President Obama described Armstrong as “ among the greatest of American heroes—not just of his time, but of all time ”. [ 215 ] [ 216 ] It went on to say that Armstrong had carried the aspirations of the United States ‘ citizens and had delivered “ a moment of human accomplishment that will never be forgotten. ” [ 217 ]
Armstrong ‘s family released a statement describing him as a “ loath american hero [ who had ] served his nation proudly, as a united states navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut … While we mourn the loss of a very full man, we besides celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the earth to work intemperate to make their dreams come genuine, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to altruistically serve a cause greater than themselves. For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the following time you walk outside on a open night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink. ” [ 218 ] It prompted many responses, including the Twitter hashtag “ # WinkAtTheMoon ”. [ 219 ] Buzz Aldrin called Armstrong “ a true american bomber and the best original I always knew ”, and said he was disappointed that they would not be able to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon landing together in 2019. [ 220 ] [ 221 ] Michael Collins said, “ He was the best, and I will miss him terribly. ” [ 222 ] [ 223 ] NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. said, “ american samoa farseeing as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking world ‘s first gear belittled step on a universe beyond our own ”. [ 224 ] [ 225 ]
A protection was held for Armstrong on September 13, at Washington National Cathedral, whose Space Window depicts the Apollo 11 mission and holds a splinter of Moon rock amid its stained-glass panels. [ 226 ] In attendance were Armstrong ‘s Apollo 11 crewmates, Collins and Aldrin ; Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17 deputation air force officer and last man to walk on the Moon ; and former senator and astronaut John Glenn, the first american to orbit the Earth. In his eulogy, Charles Bolden praised Armstrong ‘s “ courage, grace, and humility ”. Cernan recalled Armstrong ‘s low-fuel overture to the Moon : “ When the bore says empty, we all know there ‘s a gallon or two left in the tank ! ” Diana Krall sang the song “ Fly Me to the Moon “. Collins led prayers. David Scott spoke, possibly for the first base time, about an incident during their Gemini 8 mission : minutes before the hatch was to be sealed, a little chip of dry glue fell into the latch of his harness and prevented it from being buckled, threatening to abort the mission. Armstrong then called on Conrad to solve the problem, which he did, and the mission proceeded. “ That happened because Neil Armstrong was a team player—he constantly worked on behalf of the team. ” [ 226 ] Congressman Bill Johnson from Armstrong ‘s home department of state of Ohio led calls for President Barack Obama to authorize a state funeral in Washington D.C. Throughout his life, Armstrong shunned publicity and rarely gave interviews. Mindful that Armstrong would have objected to a state funeral, his class opted to have a private funeral in Cincinnati. [ 227 ] On September 14, Armstrong ‘s cremate remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean from the USS Philippine Sea. [ 228 ] Flags were flown at half-mast on the day of Armstrong ‘s funeral. [ 229 ] In July 2019, after observations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon down, The New York Times reported on details of a aesculapian malpractice suit Armstrong ‘s family had filed against Mercy Health–Fairfield Hospital, where he died. When Armstrong appeared to be recovering from his bypass surgery, nurses removed the wires connected to his temp pacemaker. He began to bleed internally and his blood pressure dropped. Doctors took him to the hospital ‘s catheterization testing ground, and entirely late began operating. Two of the three physicians who reviewed the medical files during the lawsuit called this a serious error, saying surgery should have begun immediately ; experts the Times talked to, while qualifying their judgment by noting that they were unable to review the specific records in the case, said that taking a patient in those circumstances to the function board broadly gave them the highest chance of survival. [ 230 ] The family ultimately settled for $ 6 million in 2014. Letters included with the 93 pages of documents sent to the Times by an unknown individual [ 231 ] show that his sons intimated to the hospital, through their lawyers, that they might discuss what happened to their father publicly at the forty-fifth anniversary observances in 2014. The hospital, fearing the bad publicity that would result from being accused of negligently causing the death of a august figure such as Armstrong, agreed to pay american samoa long as the kin never spoke about the suit or the colony. [ 230 ] Armstrong ‘s wife, Carol, was not a party to the lawsuit. She reportedly felt that her conserve would have been opposed to taking legal action. [ 232 ]

bequest

When Pete Conrad of Apollo 12 became the third base man to walk on the Moon, on November 19, 1969, his beginning words referenced Armstrong. The unretentive of the two, when Conrad stepped from the LM onto the surface he proclaimed “ Whoopie ! man, that may have been a little one for Neil, but that ‘s a long one for me. ” [ 233 ] Armstrong received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom ( with differentiation ) from President Nixon, [ 156 ] [ 234 ] the Cullum Geographical Medal from the american Geographical Society, [ 235 ] and the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautic Association ( 1969 ) ; [ 236 ] the NASA Distinguished Service Medal [ 237 ] and the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy ( 1970 ) ; [ 238 ] the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy ( 1971 ) ; [ 239 ] the congressional Space Medal of Honor from President Jimmy Carter ( 1978 ) ; [ 84 ] the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy from the National Aeronautic Association ( 2001 ) ; [ 240 ] and a Congressional Gold Medal ( 2011 ). [ 241 ] Armstrong was elected as extremity into the National Academy of Engineering in 1978 for contributions to aerospace engineering, scientific cognition, and exploration of the population as an experimental test fly and astronaut. [ 242 ] He was elected to the american Philosophical Society in 2001. [ 243 ] Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crewmates were the 1999 recipients of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution. [ 244 ] On April 18, 2006, he received NASA ‘s Ambassador of Exploration Award. [ 245 ] The Space Foundation named Armstrong as a recipient of its 2013 General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award. [ 246 ] Armstrong was besides inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor, [ 247 ] [ 248 ] the International Space Hall of Fame, [ 249 ] National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. [ 250 ] [ 251 ] He was awarded his naval Astronaut badge in a ceremony on board the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on March 10, 2010, in a ceremony attended by Lovell and Cernan. [ 252 ]
President Barack Obama poses with the Apollo 11 crew on the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar bring, July 20, 2009 : Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong The lunar crater Armstrong, 31 miles ( 50 kilometer ) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong are named in his honor. [ 253 ] There are more than a twelve elementary, middle and high schools named for Armstrong in the United States, [ 254 ] and many places around the global have streets, buildings, schools, and other places named for him and/or Apollo. [ 255 ] The Armstrong Air and Space Museum, in Armstrong ‘s hometown of Wapakoneta, [ 256 ] and the Neil Armstrong Airport in New Knoxville, Ohio, are named after him. [ 257 ] The mineral armstrongite is named after him, [ 258 ] and the mineral armalcolite is named, in part, after him. [ 259 ] In October 2004 Purdue University named its newfangled technology build Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering ; [ 260 ] the building was dedicated on October 27, 2007, during a ceremony at which Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue astronauts. [ 261 ] The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center was renamed the NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center in 2014. [ 262 ] In September 2012, the U.S. Navy named the first base Armstrong -class vessel RV Neil Armstrong. Delivered to the Navy on September 23, 2015, it is a modern oceanographic inquiry chopine supporting a wide compass of activities by academic groups. [ 263 ] In 2019, the College of Engineering at Purdue University celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong ‘s walk on the Moon by launching the Neil Armstrong Distinguished Visiting Fellows Program, which brings highly achieve scholars and practitioners to the college to catalyze collaborations with staff and students. [ 264 ]
Armstrong ‘s authoritative biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was published in 2005. For many years, he turned down biography offers from authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James A. Michener, but agreed to work with James R. Hansen after reading one of Hansen ‘s other biographies. [ 265 ] He recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission, when he had believed there was only a 50 % gamble of landing on the Moon. “ I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful ”. [ 266 ] A film adaptation of the book, starring Ryan Gosling and directed by Damien Chazelle, was released in October 2018. [ 267 ] In July 2018, Armstrong ‘s sons put his solicitation of memorabilia up for sale, including his Boy Scout cap, and versatile flags and medals flown on his space missions. A series of auctions was held on November 1 to 3, 2018, that realized $ 5,276,320. As of July 2019, the auction sales have totaled $ 16.7 million. [ 232 ] Two fragments of woodwind from the propeller and four pieces of fabric from the flank of the 1903 Wright Flyer that Armstrong took to the Moon fetched between $ 112,500 and $ 275,000 each. [ 268 ] [ 269 ] Armstrong ‘s wife, Carol, has not put any of his memorabilia up for sale. [ 232 ] Armstrong donated his papers to Purdue. Along with posthumous donations by his widow Carol, the collection consists of over 450 boxes of material. In May 2019, she donated two 25-by-24-inch ( 640 by 610 millimeter ) pieces of framework from the Wright Flyer, along with his correspondence related to them. [ 270 ]
In a 2010 Space Foundation sketch, Armstrong was ranked as the # 1 most popular space hero ; [ 271 ] and in 2013, Flying magazine ranked him # 1 on its list of 51 Heroes of Aviation. [ 272 ] The press frequently asked Armstrong for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, he said that a homo mission to Mars would be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s. In 2010, he made a rare public criticism of the decision to cancel the Ares I launch vehicle and the Constellation Moon landing program. [ 273 ] In an open letter besides signed by chap Apollo veterans Lovell and Cernan, he noted, “ For The United States, the leading quad faring state for closely half a century, to be without baby buggy to humble Earth orb and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth eye socket for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature ”. [ 274 ] On November 18, 2010, aged 80, he said in a actor’s line during the Science & Technology Summit in the Hague, Netherlands, that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he were asked. [ 275 ] The planetarium at Altoona Area High School in Altoona, Pennsylvania is named after Neil Armstrong and is home to a Space Race museum. [ 276 ] Armstrong was named the class exemplar for the class of 2019 at the U.S. Air Force Academy. [ 277 ]