Neil Alden Armstrong
1930-
American Astronaut, Test Pilot, and Engineer
Neil Armstrong enjoyed a distinguished career as a research test pilot before becoming a NASA astronaut in 1962. After leaving NASA he served on two Presidential commissions that helped to define the agency's future. He is best known, however, for leaving the first human footprints on another world.
Armstrong was born on a farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. In love with flying from boyhood, he wanted to study aeronautical engineering in college. A U. S. Navy scholarship gave him the money he needed, but a call to active duty interrupted his studies at Purdue University. Armstrong flew jet fighters for the navy from 1949 to 1952, flying 78 combat missions from the aircraft carrier Essex during the Korean War. After leaving the service he returned to his studies, receiving a B.S. in aeronautical engineering in 1955.
Now both an engineer and an experienced jet pilot, Armstrong went to work for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics as an aeronautical research pilot. NACA, the forerunner of NASA, used jet fighters and experimental rocket planes to test new techniques for designing high performance aircraft. The experience Armstrong gained on such flights made him an ideal astronaut candidate. He joined the manned space program in 1962, one of the first two civilians to do so. He commanded the Gemini 8 mission in March 1966 and, on the ground, played supporting roles in four other Gemini missions.
Armstrong's selection as commander of the Apollo 11 mission—the first lunar landing—was not foreordained. It was the result of a complex, unpredictable set of events that shaped, and reshaped, Apollo crew assignments in 1967-69. Once selected, however, Armstrong proved to be an ideal choice. When the planned landing site on the Moon turned out to be strewn with large boulders, Armstrong coolly overrode onboard computers and manually guided the lunar module Eagle to a safer place. He landed it so gently that its shock absorbers barely compressed, with only seconds of fuel to spare. During his two-hour, 14-minute moonwalk on July 20, 1969, Armstrong adapted easily to work on the lunarsurface. The data and samples that he and crewmate Buzz Aldrin (1930-) collected were modest by the standards of later missions, but they gave Earth-bound scientists a priceless firsthand glimpse of another world.
Neil Armstrong. (NASA. Reproduced by permission.)The landing of Apollo 11 was more than a triumph of science and engineering: it was a public event. Millions followed its progress on television, eager for the chance to see one of the great events of the century unfold. Neil Armstrong's voice was, for millions who watched live and millions more who have since watched the films, the soundtrack for the landing. Knowing, perhaps, that this would be so, Armstrong rose to the occasion. His carefully low-key announcement of the landing let the event speak for itself: "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." His one-line speech after stepping into the lunar dust expressed a soaring sentiment in simple words. "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." (The "a" was not heard by listeners due to the lack of sensitivity in Armstrong's microphone.) His running commentary during the moonwalk perfectly echoed the emotions that viewers on Earth felt: pride, exuberance, and endless curiosity.
Armstrong left NASA for business and university teaching in 1971, and he has remained the most private of private citizens since then. He did, however, serve on two presidential commissions in the mid-1980s. The first, the National Commission on Space, developed long-term goals for America's space program in 1984-85. The second, generally known as the Rogers Commission, investigated the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Neil Armstrong brought to both commissions what he had brought to the space program: razor-sharp intelligence, cool judgement, and an air of absolute dedication.
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