About Neil Armstrong Biography || First Astronaut on the Moon

Facts About Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong : Neil Armstrong is popularly known as the first man to walk on the Moon. He is a former American test pilot and US astronaut, and is currently retired.

He was born on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA. Neil Armstrong was interested in aviation from a young age. At 15, he worked in various jobs in order to pay for his flying lessons. At 16, he got his student pilot’s license before he was legally old enough to drive a car and before he graduated from Blume High School, in Wapakoneta, in 1947.

Immediately after high school, Neil Armstrong received a scholarship from the US Navy. He enrolled at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana and began his studies of aeronautical engineering, but in 1949, the Navy called him to active duty.

In 1950, Neil Armstrong was sent to Korea and served as a naval pilot during the Korean War. He flew 78 combat missions from the USS Essex in a Grumman F9F-2 Panther. He received three medals: the Air Medal and two Gold Stars for his military service during the Korean War.

After the war, he left the Navy and returned to Purdue in 1952 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering In 1955, he joined NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – now known as NASA), as a research pilot at the NACA Lewis Research Centre in Cleveland, Ohio.

Later that year, he transferred to the NACA High Speed Flight Station (now NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Centre), at Edwards Air Force Base in California where he worked as a test pilot for many experimental high speed aircraft including the X-15. From 1960 to 1962, he was a pilot involved in the X-20 Dyna-Soar orbital glider programme.

Important Facts Aabout Neil Armstrong

In 1962, while serving as a test pilot, Neil Armstrong was selected by NASA to join the second group of NASA’s astronaut trainees (one of nine NASA astronauts). He moved to El Lago, Texas, near Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center to begin his astronaut training and underwent four years of intensive training for the Apollo programme.

His first task was as reinforcement order pilot for the Gemini 5 mission in 1965. In 1966, Neil Armstrong was allocated as order pilot for the Gemini 8. The Gemini 8 mission was sent off on March 16, 1966 and accomplished the primary docking of two circling rocket. His first space flight was almost a calamity. He was in the principal US crisis in space with his accomplice, David Scott when their shuttle turned ridiculously wild. Then they got back to securely Earth.

He was the reinforcement order pilot for the Gemini 11 mission in 1966 and the authority of the reinforcement group for the Apollo 8 lunar orbital mission in 1968, utilizing Apollo Spacecraft.

In 1968, Neil Armstrong was decided to be an individual from the Apollo 11 mission, the main monitored lunar landing. The Apollo 11 teams were: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin bns Apollo 11 was sent off on July 16, 1969, from Cape Kennedy, Florida by a Saturn V rocket.

Facts about Neil Aarmstrong on The Moon

After four days, it went into space around the Moon. The lunar module Eagle isolated from the Command Module with Armstrong and Aldrin on board and slid to the outer layer of the Moon. Michael Collins stayed in the Command Module in circle.

During the Moon arrival, Armstrong assumed manual command over the Lunar Module Eagle and steered it away from a rough region and made a protected arriving on the moon. His first words from the Moon were! “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed”.

Neil Armstrong was the principal individual to stroll on the Moon on July 20, 1969. His first words subsequent to stepping on the moon were, “That is one little advance for a man, one goliath jump for humanity”. This occasion was broadcast to Earth and seen by millions! The Apollo 11 group returned securely to Earth on July 24, 1969.

From 1969 to 1971, Neil Armstrong stood firm on the foothold of Deputy Association Administrator for Aeronautics, NASA Headquarters Office of Advanced Research and Technology.

He left NASA in 1971, and turned into a teacher of aeronautic design at the University of Cincinnati, where he was associated with both educating and research until 1979. During the years 1982-1992, Armstrong was executive of Computing Technologies for Aviation Inc., Charlottesville, Virginia.

In 1986, he was appointed as vice chairman of the presidential commission that investigated the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.

From 1989 until he retired in 2002, Neil Armstrong served as chairman of AIL Technologies (Deer Park, New York), an electronics and avionics manufacturer.

In 1994, he began refusing any requests for autographs, after he found that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries are in circulation. Often items reached prices of US$1,000 on auction sites like eBay.

Signed photographs of the Apollo 11 crew could sell for $5,000. Any requests sent to him received a form letter in reply saying that he has stopped signing.

In 2005, Armstrong said that a human voyage to Mars will be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s: “I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961.”

Armstrong also recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission. He had believed there was only a 50 percent chance of landing on the Moon. “I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful,” he said.

In May 2005, Neil Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal battle with his barber of 20 years, Marx Sizemore of Lebanon, Ohio. After cutting Armstrong’s hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without his knowledge or consent. 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 that Armstrong chose.

Armstrong received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Space Medal of Honour. His authorized biography, First Man : The Life of Neil A Armstrong, was published in 2005. In a 2010 Space Foundation Survey, he was ranked as the number one most popular space hero.

when did neil armstrong die

Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery.