ASTRONAUT.....The
first man on the moon, US astronaut Neil Armstrong, passed away at the age of
82 yesterday.
COLUMBUS : US astronaut Neil
Armstrong, who took a giant leap for mankind when he became the first person to
walk on the moon, has died at the age of 82, his family said yesterday.
Armstrong died following
complications from heart-bypass surgery he underwent earlier this month, the
family said in a statement, just two days after his birthday on August 5.
As commander of the Apollo
11 mission, Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon on July
20, 1969. As he stepped on the dusty surface, Armstrong said: ““That’s one
small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Those words endure as one of
the best-known quotes in the English language.
The Apollo 11 astronauts’
euphoric moonwalk provided Americans with a sense of achievement in the space
race with Cold War foe the Soviet Union and while Washington was engaged in a
bloody war with the communists in Vietnam.
Neil Alden Armstrong was 38
years old at the time and even though he had fulfilled one of mankind’s age-old
quests that placed him at the pinnacle of human achievement, he did not revel
in his accomplishment. He even seemed frustrated by the acclaim it brought.
“I guess we all like to be
recognized not for one piece of fireworks but for the ledger of our daily
work,” Armstrong said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program in 2005.
He once was asked how he
felt knowing his footprints would likely stay on the moon’s surface for
thousands of years. “I kind of hope that somebody goes up there one of these
days and cleans them up,” he said.
A
very private man
James Hansen, author of
“First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” told CBS: “All of the attention
that ... the public put on stepping down that ladder onto the surface itself,
Neil never could really understand why there was so much focus on that.”
The Apollo 11 moon mission
turned out to be Armstrong’s last space flight. The next year he was appointed
to a desk job, being named NASA’s deputy associate administrator for
aeronautics in the office of advanced research and technology.
Armstrong’s post-NASA life
was a very private one. He took no major role in ceremonies marking the 25th
anniversary of the moon landing. “He’s a recluse’s recluse,” said Dave Garrett,
a former NASA spokesman.
Hansen said stories of
Armstrong dreaming of space exploration as a boy were apocryphal, although he
was long dedicated to flight. “His life was about flying. His life was about
piloting,” Hansen said.
Born August 5, 1930, in
Wapakoneta, Ohio, Armstrong was the first of three children of Stephen and
Viola Armstrong. He married his college sweetheart, Janet Shearon, in 1956.
They were divorced in 1994, when he married Carol Knight.
Armstrong had his first
joyride in a plane at age 6. Growing up in Ohio, he began making model planes
and by his early teens had amassed an extensive aviation library. With money
earned from odd jobs, he took flying lessons and obtained his pilot’s license
even before he got a car license.
In high school he excelled
in science and mathematics and won a US Navy scholarship to Purdue University
in Indiana, enrolling in 1947. He left after two years to become a Navy pilot,
flying combat missions in the Korean War and winning three medals.
CREW.....The
Apollo 11 crew of US astronauts, pictured in this May 1, 1969 photo, from left,
Mission Commander, Neil Armstrong, Command Module pilot Michael Collins and
Lunar Module pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.
Flying
test planes
After the war he returned to
Purdue and graduated in 1955 with an aeronautical engineering degree. He joined
the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), which became NASA in
1958.
Armstrong spent seven years
at NACA’s high-speed flight station at Edwards Air Force Base in California,
becoming one of the world’s best test pilots. He flew the X-15 rocket plane to
the edge of space - 200,000 feet up (61,000 meters) at 4,000 mph (6,435 kph).
In September 1962, Armstrong
was selected by NASA to be an astronaut. He was command pilot for the Gemini 8
mission and backup command pilot for the Gemini 11 mission, both in 1966.
On the Gemini 8 mission,
Armstrong and fellow astronaut David Scott performed the first successful
docking of a manned spacecraft with another space vehicle.
Armstrong put his piloting
skills to good use on the moon landing, overriding the automatic pilot so he
and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would not have to land their module in
a big rocky crater.
Yet the landing was not
without danger. The lander had only about 30 seconds of fuel left when
Armstrong put it down in an area known as the Sea of Tranquillity and calmly
radioed back to Mission Control on Earth, “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The
Eagle has landed.”
Aldrin, who along with
Armstrong and Michael Collins formed the Apollo 11 crew, told BBC radio that he
would remember Armstrong as “a very capable commander and leader of an
achievement that will be recognized until man sets foot on the planet Mars.”
Armstrong left the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) a year after Apollo 11 to become a
professor of engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
Declines
offers to run for office
After his aeronautical
career, political groups approached Armstrong, but unlike former astronauts
John Glenn and Harrison Schmitt who became US senators, he declined all offers.
In 1986, he served on a
presidential commission that investigated the explosion that destroyed the
space shuttle Challenger, killing its crew of seven shortly after launch from
Cape Canaveral in January of that year.
Armstrong made a rare public
appearance several years ago when he testified to a congressional hearing
against President Barack Obama administration’s plans to buy rides from other
countries and corporations to ferry US astronauts to and from the International
Space Station.
Armstrong also said that
returning humans to the moon was not only desirable, but necessary for future exploration
— even though NASA says it is no longer a priority.
He lived in the Cincinnati
area with his wife, Carol.
“We are heartbroken to share
the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away,” the family said in their
statement. “Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and
friend.”
His family expressed hope
that young people around the world would be inspired by Armstrong’s feat to
push boundaries and serve a cause greater than themselves.
“The next time you walk
outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil
Armstrong and give him a wink,” the family said.
Obama said that Armstrong
“was among the greatest of American heroes - not just of his time, but of all
time. ...
“Today, Neil’s spirit of
discovery lives on in all the men and women who have devoted their lives to
exploring the unknown - including those who are ensuring that we reach higher
and go further in space. That legacy will endure - sparked by a man who taught
us the enormous power of one small step.”
Glenn, an original NASA
astronaut with Armstrong, spoke of his colleague’s humble nature. “He was
willing to dare greatly for his country and he was proud to do that and yet
remained the same humble person he’d always been,” he told CNN yesterday.
The space agency sent out a
brief statement in the wake of the news, saying it “offers its condolences on
today’s passing of Neil Armstrong, former test pilot, astronaut and the first
man on the moon.”
Armstrong is survived by his
two sons, a stepson and stepdaughter, 10 grandchildren, a brother and a sister,
NASA said.
Some controversy still
surrounds his famous quote. The live broadcast did not have the “a” in “one
small step for a man ...” He and NASA insisted static had obscured the “a,” but
after repeated playbacks, he admitted he may have dropped the letter and
expressed a preference that quotations include the “a” in parentheses.
Asked to describe what it
was like to stand on the moon, he told CBS:
“It’s an interesting place
to be. I recommend it.” (Reuters)
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