Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) Engineer, Pilot, Astronaut and the First Human to Walk on the Moon

COMMENT OBITUARY Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) Engineer, pilot, astronaut and the first human to walk on the Moon.

eil Armstrong accepted that he invaluable during his first mission in March tensions. Millions of people, myself included, would always be remembered as the 1966, in Gemini VIII, when he and David imagined being Armstrong as he reached the first human to set foot on the Moon, Scott docked their capsule in orbit around “magnificent desolation” of the lunar surface. Nwhich he did as commander of the Apollo 11 Earth to an Agena spacecraft, the first such As a 15-year-old, I sat with friends on a car, mission on 20 July 1969. But that was not rendezvous in space. Soon after, the joined looking up at the Moon and listening to the all that defined him. Armstrong was proud vehicles began tumbling uncontrollably. astronauts over the car’s radio. It was an inspi- of his naval service: flying combat rational moment, but it was fleeting. missions in the Korean War and What was not fleeting was how testing high-performance aircraft. Armstrong embodied the spirit of NASA He was a committed educator and a the accomplishment until his last quiet but thoughtful force in delin- breath. He lived a life of quiet grace, eating US aerospace policy. rarely embroiling himself in day- Armstrong died aged 82 on to-day fights while exemplifying a 25 August 2012, from complica- unique merger of the ‘Right Stuff’ tions of heart-bypass surgery. He with introspection and calm. Some was born on 5 August 1930 on his have characterized him as a recluse; grandparents’ farm near Wapakon- I know some at NASA wished that eta, Ohio. His parents took him to he had supported the agency’s ini- air races as a boy and he fell in love tiatives more publicly. with the prospect of flying. Arm- Armstrong sought neither fame strong took his first plane ride in a nor riches. When he could have Ford Tri-Motor at the age of 6, and done anything he wished, he chose by 16 he had earned his student to teach aerospace engineering at pilot’s licence; all before he could the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. drive a car or had a high-school For four decades, Armstrong diploma. made clear his perspective on After high school, Armstrong myriad aerospace issues to many went to Purdue University in West leaders and to the commissions on Lafayette, Indiana, to study aero- which he served. His considered nautical engineering. His scholar- opinions carried weight, nota- ship from the US Navy required bly in the Centennial of Flight him to serve a tour of active duty Commission, which oversaw the after two years of education. He commemoration of the Wright became an aviator, and in 1950 was sent to Armstrong managed to undock Gemini VIII brothers, and in the investigation of the Korea, where he engaged in raids of North and stabilize the craft, and the astronauts Challenger accident. Korean railway bridges, targets that have made an emergency landing in the Pacific Commentators usually compare Arm- been immortalized in the James Michener Ocean. They learned later that a stuck con- strong’s first step on the Moon to Christo- novel The Bridges at Toko-Ri. trol jet had caused the spacecraft to spin. pher Columbus’s arrival at the Americas, as In 1952, Armstrong returned to Purdue to On Apollo 11, as is now legendary, Arm- vanguards of sustained exploration and set- finish his bachelor’s degree and then joined strong, along with Michael Collins and tlement. Yet increasingly, the parallel seems the National Advisory Committee for Aero Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, completed the first to be the voyage centuries earlier of Norse nautics (NACA), which became NASA in Moon landing. Armstrong piloted the lunar explorer Leif Erikson — a stillborn event in 1958. As an engineer and research pilot he module during its final descent, and stepped the long process of exploring new lands. worked at NACA’s Lewis Research Center down to make his famous (mis)statement: Armstrong was always perplexed by the near Cleveland, Ohio, and then at the High “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant praise heaped on him. The Moon landing Speed Flight Research Center in Edwards, leap for mankind.” Armstrong and Aldrin was the result of the labour of hundreds of California. Armstrong flew pioneering air- spent around two and a half hours on the thousands and the accomplishment of a craft, including the X-15 rocket plane that Moon’s surface, collecting samples, doing generation of humanity, he said. We will all set speed and altitude records in the early experiments and taking photographs, before miss him, not just for being the first Moon 1960s. Over the years, he took the controls returning to Collins and the lunar module. walker, but for the honour and dignity with of more than 200 models of jet, rocket, glider The trio splashed down into the Pacific which he carried the weight of that history and helicopter. Ocean on 24 July. on his back. ■ Armstrong transferred to astronaut sta- Almost everyone who is old enough recalls tus in 1962, and was one of nine members where they were when Apollo 11 touched Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the of the second class to be chosen for space- down on the Moon. In the United States, Division of Space History at the Smithsonian flight. (The first class, the Mercury Seven, the landing briefly unified a nation divided Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. was picked in 1959.) His experience was by political, social, racial and economic e-mail: [email protected]