Search This Blog

Monday 12 September 2011

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel in Auglaize County, near Wapakoneta, Ohio.

When he was five, Neil experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio on July 20, 1936 when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor, also known as the "Tin Goose".

Before becoming an astronaut, Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) was in the United States Navy and served in the Korean War. Armstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air, most of which was in January 1952.

After the war, Neil Armstrong served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft.

Armstrong, 26, as a test pilot

Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962 after participating in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs.

His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians to fly in space. On this mission, Armstrong performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott on March 16, 1966.

Neil Armstrong, 35, suiting up for Gemini 8 in March 1966

Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.  He spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft along with Buzz Aldrin,

There is just one blurry shot on the moon of Armstrong. Buzz Aldrin denied intentionally scuppering the photos, insisting it was because he put down the camera to answer a call from President Nixon.

The crew of Apollo 11 who put the first man on the moon had the same initials as the first men on earth. Armstrong : Adam Aldrin : Abel Collins : Cain.

Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.

Photo of Neil Armstrong, July 1969, in space suit with the helmet off

Neil Armstrong brought part of the Wright Flyer to the Moon in his space suit’s pocket. The Wright Brothers, like Armstrong, were from Ohio. The pieces were part of the propeller and some of the fabric from the wing of the 1903.

Neil Armstrong wanted to take a football to the moon but NASA wouldn't permit it.

Neil Armstrong earned his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering in 1970, a year after landing on the moon.

He resigned from NASA in 1971 to take a teaching job, where he stayed for more than eight years—longer than his career as an astronaut. As part of a research group that included physician Henry Heimlich, Armstrong helped to design an artificial heart-lung system based on Apollo technology.

In 1979, Neil Armstrong was working on his farm when he got his wedding ring stuck in the gears of a tractor. He didn’t get it out in time—his ring and ring finger got torn clean off. Armstrong then packed it in some ice and drove himself to the hospital to get it reattached.

Neil Armstrong met his second wife, Carol Knight, a golf tournament in 1992, when they were seated together at breakfast. Two weeks later, he called her to ask what she was doing and she said cutting down a cherry tree. Half an hour later, he was at her house to help. They were married in Ohio on June 12, 1994, and stayed wed until his death.

Neil Armstrong also went to the North Pole, sixteen years after walking on the Moon, with Sir Edmund Hillary (first to climb Mt Everest) and other prominent explorers. He said that he was curious to see it from the ground, since he'd only seen it from space.

Armstrong refused all requests for autographs, after he found in 1994 that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries are in circulation.

Armstrong hosted First Flights, a half-hour televised documentary series. First Flights debuted on September 25, 1991, on A&E Networks. The show, which covered the history of aviation, from early balloons and gliders to the supersonic X-15 aircraft, ran for three seasons.


In May 2005 Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal battle with Marx Sizemore, his barber of 20 years. After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission.
Armstrong threatened legal action unless the barber returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to get the hair back, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice.

On November 18, 2010 the 80-year-old Neil Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, Netherlands that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he was asked.

Neil Armstrong died in a Cincinnati, Ohio, hospital on August 25, 2012, following bypass surgery to relieve blocked coronary arteries.

The widow of Neil Armstrong, Carol, found a bag full of equipment used by her husband during the moon landing in a closet after her husband's death. The mementos from the Apollo 11 mission, including a camera that filmed him walking on the moon.

Neil Armstrong photographed in the cabin of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module 

Neil Armstrong was the great-uncle of Billie Joe Armstrong, lead vocalist and guitarist of Green Day.

Neil A backwards spells 'Alien.'

Neil Armstrong's moon boots are still floating around in space.

Source Wikipedia

No comments:

Post a Comment