Neil Armstrong : The First Man to walk on Moon

Neil Armstrong Pose
Credits- NASA

Neil Armstrong full name Neil Alden Armstrong born August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S is an American astronaut and the first person to set foot on the moon.

Early Life

Credit- NASA

Neil Alden Armstrong was the son of Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel. His father was an Auditor for the Ohio state government and due to his job, they have to move throughout the state, living in 16 cities in 14 years.

Armstrong studied at Blume High School and took the flying lesson at the grassy Wapakoneta airfield. He had a love for flying from a small age since his father took him for Cleveland Air Race at the age of 2.

He got his student flight certificate on his 16th birthday, at the age of 17 he began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University.

Career

Pic Credits- NASA

Armstrong got a call-up from Navy on 6th January 1949, he reported at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida for flight training with class 5-49. After passing his medical examination, he was given the rank of Midshipman on February 26, 1949.

On March 2, 1950, he made his first aircraft carrier landing on the USS Cabot. He was then sent to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas for training on the Grumman F8F Bearcat.

On August 16, 1950, he became a qualified naval aviator, and he was seen in action in the Korean War.

After serving in the Navy from 1949 to 1952. Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1955. The first assignment given to him was with NACA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland and for next 17 years, he served as an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NACA and its successor agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He has flown over 200 models of aircraft.

In 1962, he was given Astronaut status. He was the command pilot for Gemini 8 mission.

Appolo 11

Credits- NTDTV

On July 20, 1969, Armstrong stepped out from the Eagle onto the dusty surface of Moon with the words, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” The Module was left there was more than two hours and which deployed scientific instruments, collected surface samples, and took a number of photographs.

After spending 21 hours and 36 minutes on Moon, they lifted off and began the trip back to Earth. After being free from an 18-day isolation to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the crew was honored across the United States and around the world as part of a 45-day “Giant Leap” tour.

Later Life

Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot.
Source- NASA Human Space Flight Gallery

After retiring from NASA in 1971, he shied away from becoming a public figure and started teaching aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati until 1979. Than he served at various companies as chairman or director including Computing Technologies for Aviation from 1982 to 1992 and AIL Systems until his retirement in 2002.

He was the recipient of many special honours and was decorated by 17 countries and also received honour like Presidential Medal of Freedom; the Congressional Gold Medal; the Congressional Space Medal of Honor; the Explorers Club Medal; the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy; the NASA Distinguished Service Medal; the Harmon International Aviation Trophy; the Royal Geographic Society’s Gold Medal; the Federation Aeronautique Internationale’s Gold Space Medal; the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award; the Robert J. Collier Trophy; the AIAA Astronautics Award; the Octave Chanute Award; and the John J. Montgomery Award.