Neil Armstrong (1930 - 2012) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, aerospace engineer and astronaut who became the first person to walk on the Moon. As commander of Apollo 11 he stepped onto the lunar surface on 20 July 1969, an event watched by an estimated several hundred million people worldwide. [1][2]
Early life and education
Neil Alden Armstrong was born on 5 August 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He developed an early interest in aviation, earning a student flight certificate before he had a driver's licence, and entered Purdue University in 1947 to study aeronautical engineering on a United States Navy scholarship. [1]
Called to service, he trained as a naval aviator and flew 78 combat missions during the Korean War. He returned to Purdue to complete his degree in 1955, and later took a master's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California. [3]
Test pilot
Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the predecessor of NASA, and worked as a research test pilot at the High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He flew more than two hundred types of aircraft, including seven flights in the rocket-powered North American X-15, reaching the edge of the atmosphere. [2]
Astronaut career
Selected in NASA's second group of astronauts in 1962, Armstrong commanded Gemini 8 in March 1966. The mission achieved the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but a stuck thruster set the joined vehicles spinning and Armstrong regained control and made an emergency return, an episode widely cited as evidence of his composure as a pilot. [3]
He was named commander of Apollo 11, which launched on 16 July 1969 with Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Armstrong piloted the lunar module Eagle manually past a boulder-strewn area to a landing in the Sea of Tranquillity with little fuel remaining, and hours later descended the ladder to the surface with the words "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." [1]
Armstrong and Aldrin spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, collecting samples and deploying experiments, before rejoining Collins in lunar orbit and returning to Earth on 24 July 1969. [2]
Later life
Armstrong left NASA in 1971 and became professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught until 1979. He avoided most of the public roles available to him and rarely gave interviews, but served on the review board for the Apollo 13 accident and as vice-chairman of the Rogers Commission investigating the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. [1]
He died in Cincinnati on 25 August 2012 following complications from cardiovascular surgery, and was buried at sea. [3]
Legacy
Armstrong received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Collier Trophy, among many other honours. [4] His first steps remain one of the defining images of the twentieth century and a fixed reference point in the history of exploration.