The Life of Neil Armstrong N


eil Alden Armstrong (August


5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, U.S. Navy pilot, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astro- naut, Armstrong was a United States Navy officer and served in the Ko- rean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics High- Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he logged over 900 flights. He graduated from Purdue University and completed graduate studies at the University of Southern Califor- nia.


A participant in the U.S. Air Force’s Man In Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight pro- grams, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. His first spaceflight was the NASA Gemini 8 mission in 1966, for which he was the command pilot, becoming one of the first U.S. civilians in space. On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft with pilot David Scott.


Armstrong’s second and last space- flight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring, while Michael Collins re- mained in orbit in the Command Module. Armstrong was awarded the


10


Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon along with Collins and Aldrin, the Congressio- nal Space Medal of Honor by Presi- dent Jimmy Carter in 1978, and the Congressional Gold Medal with his former crewmates in 2009.


Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82 due to complications from blocked coronary arteries.


Personal Life Armstrong was approached by po- litical groups from both ends of the spectrum after his aeronautical career. Unlike former astronauts and United States Senators John Glenn and Har- rison Schmitt, Armstrong declined all offers. Personally, he was in fa- vor of states’ rights and against the United States acting as the “world’s policeman”.


In the late 1950s, Armstrong applied at a local Methodist church to lead a Boy Scout troop. When asked for his religious affiliation, he labeled him- self as a Deist. Neil’s religious views differed from his devoted religious mother, which caused her much grief and distress in later life.


In 1972, Armstrong was welcomed into the town of Langholm, Scot- land, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong; he was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the town his home. Te Jus- tice of the Peace read from an unre- pealed 400-year-old law that required


him to hang any Armstrong found in the town.


In the fall of 1979, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring caught in the wheel, tearing off the tip of his ring finger. He collected the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1991, a year after his father had died, and nine months after the death of his mother, he suffered a mild heart attack while skiing with friends at Aspen, Colorado.


Armstrong married his first wife Janet Shearon on January 28, 1956. Te couple soon added to their family. Son Eric arrived in 1957, followed daugh- ter Karen in 1959. Sadly, Karen died of complications related to an inop- erable brain tumor in January 1962. Te following year, the Armstrongs welcomed their third child, son Mark. Armstrong’s first wife, Janet, divorced him in 1994, after 38 years of marriage. He had met his second wife, Carol Held Knight, in 1992 at a golf tournament, where they were seated together at the breakfast table. She said little to Armstrong, but two weeks later she received a call from him asking what she was doing—she replied she was cutting down a cherry tree; 35 minutes later Armstrong was at her house to help out. Tey were married on June 12, 1994, in Ohio, and then had a second ceremony, at San Ysidro Ranch, in California. He


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