Christian Hasbrouck
10-27-12
Term Paper
Period 8
Neil Armstrong
An incredible day in United States history occurred on July 20, 1969
at 10:56 P.M. Neil Alden Armstrong was 38 years old when he became the
first man to ever set foot on the moon. Every one of the global millions who
watched their television sets will never forget the moment that Armstrong
took his first step. Many watched the takeoff of the Apollo 11-Saturn V
spaceship. Prior to the liftoff, on a warm sunny day in the summer,
somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million people gathered for the space
launch at Florida’s Cape Kennedy. This happened to be one of the biggest
crowds to ever gather for any space launch in history. No tailgate party at
any Southeastern Conference football game could match the summer
festival preceding the first launch for a Moon landing. Sunglass-equipped
spectators wearing Bermuda shorts or even bikinis, even at this early hour
firing up barbecue grills, opening coolers of beer and soda pop, looking
through binoculars and telescopes, testing camera angles and lenses –
people filled every strand of sand, every oil-streaked pier, every fishsmelling jetty (First Man – The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, pg. 1). These
spectators who began gathering on the 16th of July were kept at least 3.5
miles away from the pad because, in the event of an explosion, hundredpound chunks of shrapnel would be hurled in a 3-mile radius with 4/5 the
power of an atomic bomb (Rocket Men – The Epic Story of the First Men on
the Moon, cover flap). Including the mass of people who awaited the liftoff
were Neil’s wife, Janet Armstrong and her two boys, twelve-year-old Rick
and six-year-old Mark. His family waited on a big motor cruiser owned by
North American Aviation, which was the builder of the Apollo command
module. Above all of the spectators, civilians, and family, helicopters
ferried successive groups of VIPs to reserved bleacher seating in the closest
viewing stands a little more than three miles away from the launch pad,
because of the potential risk of explosion (First Man – The Life of Neil A.
Armstrong, pg. 2). All of these people here to see three men begin one of
the most challenging and successful feats that mankind has ever been able
to accomplish. Due to Neil Armstrong being the first man to ever step foot
on the moon on July 20, 1969, this event is considered one of the most
amazing events in history.
Neil was born on a farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930.
He was of Scottish and German ancestry and had two younger siblings,
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June and Dean. His father, Stephen Koenig Armstrong, was an auditor for
the state’s county records, and so the family moved all the time – six times
in the first six years that he was alive. He lived in about twenty different
towns in total. As a child, Neil showed signs of unusually early academic
intelligence, which actually led to him being able to skip second grade
completely. Neil showed a strong love of flying very early, and later on at
age sixteen, he earned his pilot’s license. Neil learned to fly before he
learned to drive a car. The reason he wanted to fly aircrafts and become an
aviator was primarily because he wanted to learn how to improve aircraft
design based on experience, and by the time he was in elementary school,
he had decided that he wanted to become an aircraft designer. Neil was
always shy as a kid, as well as always looking strikingly younger than he
actually was. There had been many instances in which as a mid-teens boy,
people mistook him for being about twelve years of age. When he reached
junior high and high school, he played the horn in the school band. Neil was
never particularly athletic, unsurprisingly. He rarely dated in high school, or
even college. He was considered the ultimate nerdy teenager, “immature
and withdrawn,” as claimed by his brother in a later report. Yet whether or
not he was what people thought of him, he always had a firm and definite
wish to do something record-breaking. Later, we would learn that Neil
fulfilled his dream and certainly accomplished something that no man has
ever accomplished before (In the Shadow of the Moon – A Challenging
Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969, pg. 81-82). As spacecraft commander
for Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing mission, Armstrong gained the
distinction of being the first man to land a craft on the moon and first to
step on its surface
(http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/neilabio.html).
Armstrong was 17 years old when he began studying aeronautical
engineering at Perdue University in 1947. He was only able to go to college
because the U.S. Navy was paying for his education under the Holloway
Plan, in which Neil was given full tuition for two years. He was also
required, though, to serve three years of military service before
beneficiaries of the scholarship could complete their four-year degrees
(http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-neil-armstrong.htm). In 1949, after just
a year and a half in college, while he was 18 years old, Neil was pulled out
for active duty as a fighter pilot. He was assigned to a squadron fighting in
the Korean War, and quickly became a veteran combat aviator, flying 78
combat missions from aircraft carriers. He officially left military service in
1960, but returned to Perdue in the mid 1950s to finish his degree, where
he met and married his first wife, Janet Shearon. He then went to work at
the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the aviation
precursor for NASA. Transferred to the NACA station at Edwards Air Force
Base, he began work there as a civilian test pilot. His duties included flying
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simulated launch and landing approaches for the X-20, a proposed air force
winged spacecraft. In 1960, he was assigned to the program as a pilot,
although there was as yet no X-20 to fly. In the meantime, he also flew the
X-15, the rocket plane that was capable of brief suborbital spaceflights.
Neil, however, was never permitted to take it that high. According to Mike
Collin’s writing, “Neil had been considered one of the weaker stick-andrudder men, but the very best when it came to understanding the
machine’s design and how it operated (In the Shadow of the Moon – A
Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969, pg. 82).” By this time, Neil
was married to his wife, Janet. Neil chose not to live in any of the towns
near the base. Instead, the family lived in a former forest ranger’s cabin, in
the foothills of the nearby mountains. “It was one of nature’s quiet
hideaways,” Neil would later describe, adding that it was “an outpost of
serenity.” Living away from everyone else and flying solo in the most
cutting-edge aircraft, Armstrong was in engineering heaven; he described
these solo flying experiences as “the most fascinating time of my life.” By
this time he could see that becoming an astronaut would allow him to
further explore his love of engineering by going beyond the “atmospheric
fringes and into deep space work;… throughout my seventeen years at
NACA and NASA, a very large percentage of my time was involved in real
engineering work (In the Shadow of the Moon – A Challenging Journey to
Tranquility, 1965-1969, pg. 82).” Armstrong had begun to study the
problem of how to land a flying machine on the Moon some seven and a
half years prior to becoming the commander of Apollo 11. “We knew that
the lunar gravity was substantially different [roughly one-sixth that of
Earth’s],” Neil recalls of the engineering work begun at Edwards Air Force
Base following President Kennedy’s commitment to the mission in May
1961. “We knew that all our aerodynamic knowledge was not applicable in
a vacuum. We knew that the flying characteristics of such a vehicle were
going to be substantially different from anything else we were accustomed
to (First Man – The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, pg. 314).” Neil knew some
several years before the Apollo 11 flight mission that it would be a difficult
process landing the spacecraft on the Moon, while accounting for lunar
gravity. Even the knowledge they had, though, could not be applied due to
the concept of being in a vacuum. The calculations involved with the
mission of Apollo 11 would have to be precise and nearly flawless in order
for it to be successful, as well as to maintain the safety for the three
passengers; Neil and his two co-pilots, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
Beginning January 15, 1969, until July 15, 1969, the day before the launch,
the crew of Apollo 11 logged a total of 3,521 actual training hours. That
equates to 126 hours per week, or 42 hours per crew member, in specified
training programs and exercises. Roughly another 20 hours per week were
taken up by reading, studying, doing paperwork, poring over mission plans
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and procedures, talking to colleagues, traveling to training facilities, suiting
up and getting suits off, and other routine work (First Man – The Life of Neil
A. Armstrong, pg. 374-375). These three men spent so much time planning
for this mission and put so much hard work into making sure that
everything would run as smooth and efficient as possible. They were ready.
Astronauts do not like to be called heroes. They point out that it takes
hundreds of thousands of backroom engineers, mathematicians and
technicians to make space flight possible. They are right, too: at the height
of its pomp, in 1966, NASA was spending 4.4% of the American
government's budget, providing jobs for 400,000 people. It was those
workers Neil Armstrong was thinking of when, as commander of Apollo 11,
the mission that landed men on the moon on July 20th 1969, he emerged
from the lunar module to talk of small steps for man and giant leaps for
mankind ("Man on the moon; Neil Armstrong"). It was men like Armstrong
who were so modest after performing one of the greatest feats of our
history. The achievement of his crew, relayed live on television, held the
world spellbound. On their return to Earth the astronauts were mobbed,
with presidents, prime ministers and kings jostling to be seen with them.
As the first man to walk on another world, Mr. Armstrong received the
lion's share of the adulation. He knew he did not deserve it. He had never
been chosen to be first, he would explain in his gently slow-spoken,
Midwestern way; he had simply been chosen to command that particular
flight. Besides, the popular image of the hard-charging astronaut braving
mortal danger, as other men might brave a trip to the dentist, was
exaggerated. "For heaven's sake, I loathe danger," he told one interviewer
before his fateful flight. Done properly, he said, space flight ought to be no
more perilous than mixing a milkshake (“Man on the moon; Neil
Armstrong"). Neil truly believed that he should not take the credit for this
incredible feat. His family always described him as a quiet, modest person.
The other, sterner, and warier side of Armstrong’s personality sometimes
came to the fore when unwanted demands of fame invaded his relatively
private life. Armstrong had a profoundly deep sense of right and wrong, but
an occasionally over defensive sense of propriety had led him in the past to
rebuke and frustrate some well-intentioned people. “Neil doesn’t waste
words,” Neil’s Apollo 11 crew member once revealed, “but it doesn’t mean
he can’t use them.” As pad leader Guenter Wendt also noted, Armstrong
had never liked other people telling him what to do. There are few who
didn’t respect him, but for some his refusal to do anything except on his
own terms can seem overly stubborn (In the Shadow of the Moon – A
Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969, pg. 81). Some weeks
before the mission, it was later revealed, that the three crew members,
especially Neil, did not feel adequately trained, but they were afraid to
admit it. “Neil used to come home with his face drawn white, and I was
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worried about him,” Armstrong’s wife, Janet, remembered. “I was worried
about all of them. The worst period was in early June. Their morale was
down. They were worried about whether there was time enough for them to
learn the things they had to learn, to do the things they had to do, if this
mission was to work.” Flight crew operations director Deke Slayton possibly
considered pushing the mission back to August. When General Sam Phillips
asked what would be gained by postponing the launch to August, Slayton
said: “We’d gain some time in flight plans and trajectory. Basically, we’d do
what we have been doing already. We’d be more comfortable. Honest to
say, I don’t think we’d be all that much better off.” Physician Chuck Berry,
however, disagreed: “The days turn out to be long ones, and then you have
more long ones. It’s hard to put in concrete terms, but I have this feeling
that they ought not to fly in July… Deke is being straight, but realistically
it’s not going to happen that way.” Yet, whether or not they felt ready, they
landed on July 20, 1969, with the whole world watching. They had enough
experience to complete their mission.
Armstrong was decorated by 17 countries. He was the recipient of
many special honors, including the 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
(http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/neilabio.html). So many
people remember when Neil, the commander of Apollo 11 at age 38,
descended the cramped lunar module Eagle's ladder with hefty backpack
and bulky spacesuit to become the first human on the moon. Because it
was summertime, school done for the year, watching all things Apollo 11-the nearly 200-hour galactic journey from Florida to splashdown in the
Pacific--became so many people’s obsession. It was stunning that this local
kid who grew up on a farm with no electricity was leading America into the
brave new world of lunar exploration. When Armstrong said, "That's one
small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," people around the globe
were incommensurably awed at the greatness of it all. Not Armstrong.
"Pilots take no particular joy in walking," he once said in full buzzkill mode.
"Pilots like flying (“The Neil Armstrong You Didn’t Know”).” Without Neil
Armstrong, his crew, or the mission itself, our history today would be
different as we know it.
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Citation Sources
1. Nelson, Craig. ROCKET MEN - THE EPIC STORY OF THE FIRST MEN ON THE
MOON . New York: Penguin Group, 2009. Print.
2. Hansen, James R. . FIRST MAN - The Life of NEIL A. ARMSTRONG. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.
3. French , Francis, and Colin Burgess. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON - A
Challeging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press,
2007. 81-90. Print.
4. Brinkley, Douglas. "The Neil Armstrong You Didn't Know." Newsweek 10 Sept. 2012:
46. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.
5. "Man on the moon; Neil Armstrong." The Economist [US] 1 Sept. 2012: 90(US). Gale
Biography In Context. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.
6. Zona, Kathleen, ed. "Biography - Neil A. Armstrong." www.nasa.gov. NASA, 26 2012.
Web. 2 Nov 2012. <http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/bios/neilabio.html>.
7. Ellis-Christensen, Tricia, and O. Wallace, eds. "Who is Neil Armstrong?." wisegeek.
Conjecture Corporation, n.d. Web. 7 Nov 2012. <http://www.wisegeek.com/who-isneil-armstrong.htm>.
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Bibliography
1. Nelson, Craig. ROCKET MEN - THE EPIC STORY OF THE FIRST MEN ON THE
MOON . New York: Penguin Group, 2009. Print.
2. Hansen, James R. . FIRST MAN - The Life of NEIL A. ARMSTRONG. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2005. Print.
3. French , Francis, and Colin Burgess. IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON - A
Challeging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press,
2007. 81-90. Print.
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