Who is Neil Armstrong?

[CaptainChewbacca]

A very interesting piece

Who is Neil Armstrong?

A hero to millions, Neil Armstrong has consistently shunned the limelight. To mark the 40th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing, author Andrew Smith travelled across America to discover why the man who first set foot upon the Moon remains such an enigma.

His words on being the first person ever to set foot on the Moon have been written into soundbite history - but in the four decades since Neil Armstrong became a household name, he has also increasingly become an enigma.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Armstrong has refused to cash in on his fame and seemingly done everything in his power to diminish it.

So what has made Neil Armstrong such a reluctant hero, unsusceptible to the normal trappings of celebrity? And why won't he speak about his historic journey?

In his quest to uncover the man behind the spacesuit, Andrew Smith, author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, decided to travel across America to meet people who have had an impact on Armstrong's life.

His conclusion is that Armstrong, now 78, believes simply that he did not deserve the attention.

"There were 400,000 people that worked on that [Moon landing] programme in various different ways and he thinks he didn't deserve all the credit just because he did the flying part," says Smith.

But Armstrong became a celebrity overnight. The Apollo 11 Moon landing marked a seismic shift in space exploration during a time when the world was captivated by space. It was watched by the largest television audience of its time, and President Nixon put in a congratulatory phone call just after the US flag was planted.

On the astronauts' return, Nasa sent them on a world tour.

Although Neil Armstrong initially went along with the celebrations, he always remained aloof; an elusive presence who preferred to talk about facts rather than feelings.

He started to decline speeches and interviews, eventually refusing to sign autographs and shying away from being photographed in public.

"To my knowledge he has done two television interviews in the last 40 years - and he says nothing about what he felt about anything. He will talk about matters of fact and that's it," says Smith. The author has been repeatedly refused an interview with Armstrong despite many requests, although the pair have had e-mail correspondence.

"And he didn't want to profit from it financially - even though a lot of the other Moon walkers have done - and amazingly he's stood by that. An auction house told me that if Armstrong spent just one afternoon signing autographs he could make a million dollars, but he's always refused."

Face of space

Two years after his historic journey, in August 1971, Armstrong left Nasa and decided to become a teacher.

"Ostensibly, it was a very strange decision. He could have done anything," says Smith.

But if Armstrong thought a small aerospace engineering department at the University of Cincinnati would provide a refuge, he was to be disappointed.

"His old boss told me when he first arrived, he spent two hours every single day signing autographs for members of staff and students. Apparently there was a window right at the top of the wall and people used to go and make human pyramids just to look into his office.

"He dealt with it but he didn't like it, he couldn't walk across the campus without being constantly approached. He ended up going and spending a lot of his time flying, on his own, to get away from it."

Neil Armstrong's decision to keep a low profile contrasts with the man he shared the limelight with on that historic lunar landing.

Buzz Aldrin has become the face of space, courting media attention with a series of high-publicity manoeuvres including a Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space computer game and making a guest appearance in The Simpsons.

For the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, Aldrin has teamed up with hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg and producer Quincy Jones to create a rap single and video, Rocket Experience.

It's the kind of stunt that might send a shiver down Armstrong's spine.

But in an age of mass celebrity culture, how has Armstrong managed to remain so enigmatic?

"Everyone I met described Armstrong as a reserved and quiet man. I started to wonder whether they were protecting him, or maybe, in some ways at least, he was just a rather ordinary, nice man," says Smith.

And yet he concedes in many ways Armstrong is far from ordinary.

"He was an extraordinary pilot. He's flown the X-15, the fastest plane in the world, at 4,000mph (6,440km/h). He can fly anything; he is possibly the most distinguished pilot that has ever lived," says Smith.

"His generation were enchanted by flying, they were aviation pioneers. The Second World War pilots were their heroes. Armstrong never wanted to be a celebrity, he wanted to push the boundaries of flight."

Quiet determination

That an ordinary small town boy from Ohio might struggle with becoming one of the most famous men on the planet is hardly surprising. But Smith thinks his steely, disciplined determination to shy away from the public eye is another of Armstrong's strengths.

He says it helped him cheat death three times before he even got to the Moon.

"He always kept his cool. At one point on a flight he was just a fingernail away from not making it. Afterwards, fellow Nasa astronaut Alan Bean told me he saw Armstrong filling out an incident report but recalled him saying he'd just had a 'little difficulty'.

"He thought Armstrong had stubbed his toe or something, but actually he'd been two-fifths of a second away from death. He couldn't believe he was just calmly filling in forms as if nothing had happened - but that was the kind of man he was."

And then there is Armstrong's apparent eccentricity.

"The music he took on the mission to the Moon was deeply eccentric," says Smith. "Most astronauts took one classical piece, and one country and western.

"Armstrong took Dvorak's New World Symphony. But the other was theremin music - that eerie, wavy sound associated with sci-fi movies that goes 'woo woo'. On one hand it was the most perfect thing he could take, on the other it is massively eccentric - and that's kind of him."

And what about the poetic prose "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" that slips off most people's tongues almost as easily as Shakespeare's famous lines "to be or not to be"?

Whether Armstrong was fed the line by a press officer or it was his own musing is the subject of much speculation, but one of his oldest friends has his own theory about its origin.

"'Kotcho' Solacoff says they used to play the game Mother May I? (also commonly known as Grandmother's Footsteps) - where you take small steps or giant steps - in the playground. He thinks it came from that. It struck me as really weird," says Smith.

Ordinary man or gentlemanly genius, maybe Armstrong's most celebrated act has been to remain - certainly in many ways - a man of sizeable mystery.

What I found most interesting about this article is that I, being a space nut, knew almost none of this. Looking back at childhood I can recall reading Buzz Aldrin's biography, but never Armstrong's. I admit, I thought Armstrong was dead, such is his ability to remain out of the spotlight. At any rate, I think it's pretty cool how he's stayed humble.

[xammer99]

I did grad and undergrad at Purdue, I work there now, I've met the man personally, and he was friends with my father while they both went here for school, and the article is fairly spot on. The thing I'd disagree with is the mystery bit. Armstrong isn't so much of a mystery as just really that reserved and standoffish and he always has been. My father likes and respects Armstrong IMMENSELY, but still refers to him as a prick because he was so cool and distant with everyone (dad liked Roger Chaffee much more, but lord help you if you ask him about Gus Grissom). So the refusal to engage the media or his fame isn't surprising in the slightest if you are familiar with him, because that's how he's always been. He did the same thing as a young man that he does now, he wants his privacy and wants it respected.

Frankly, I'm STILL astounded that he let them name the new Engineering building after him or put a big bronze statue of him outside of it. He refused for years.

I first met him when I was I think 12 or 13 at a dinner at Purdue where they had all the Purdue Alumni astronauts there. It was really interesting watching them because most rather enjoyed if not reveled in the attention, except for Armstrong and Cernan. Armstrong remained distant from it, very very reserved and almost uncomfortable with it. Cernan frankly just looked annoyed and a bit mad because he didn't like being referred too as "The Last Man on the Moon". Still it was a really cool evening and with lots of great stories and antecdotes.

[Skylon]

\I first met him when I was I think 12 or 13 at a dinner at Purdue where they had all the Purdue Alumni astronauts there. It was really interesting watching them because most rather enjoyed if not reveled in the attention, except for Armstrong and Cernan. Armstrong remained distant from it, very very reserved and almost uncomfortable with it. Cernan frankly just looked annoyed and a bit mad because he didn't like being referred too as "The Last Man on the Moon". Still it was a really cool evening and with lots of great stories and antecdotes.

Cernan shouldn't have titled his book "The Last Man on the Moon" then.

The comment in the article about him being "the most distinguished pilot that has ever lived" is a bit of a stretch. Other guys flew the X-15...some more than Armstrong, farther and faster. Armstrong was also regarded as one of the weaker "stick and rudder" pilots among the astronauts, but one of the best at understanding the workings of aircraft/spacecraft. Still, interesting article.

[Broomstick]

Armstrong was also regarded as one of the weaker "stick and rudder" pilots among the astronauts, but one of the best at understanding the workings of aircraft/spacecraft.

"Stick and rudder" is NOT the be all and end all of flying. I've seen people with godlike stick and rudder skills shipped home in boxes (I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally - coffins unloaded from airplanes used to transport burned remains home for the funeral). Yes, it's important but you need more than that.

A person of less-than-awesome but very competent stick and rudder skills who ALSO has a deep understanding of his environment and machinery, and who ALSO remains utterly cool in a crisis, is, in my opinion, a better choice and by extension a better overall pilot. Awesome stick and rudder doesn't mean jack if you're constantly getting yourself into trouble, or don't understand how to get out of trouble, or are in any way prone to panic.

It's even more important to have understanding and coolness when you're millions of miles from your home planet, utterly cut off from any aid, and in the extremely hostile environment of space.

I don't like how Armstrong is referred to as a "mystery" or an "enigma" - he's an unusual personality, but I don't think there's anything hidden here. He really doesn't want fame or publicity and didn't do the moonshot to get rich. I guess people are so used to ulterior motives that they can't handle it when there isn't one.

[FSTargetDrone]

If Armstrong didn't want to capitalize on his fame, so be it. Lesser men have made more noise about smaller accomplishments and it's certainly admirable that Armstrong saw what he was doing as just his job.

I do wish, however, that he would give more interviews about the Apollo program. He's not going to be around forever and it would be unfortunate if the opportunity to learn more about his memories of the experiences he had in the program and on the moon are lost. I don't care about his personal life, what kind of music he took with him or any of that extraneous nonsense. What I'm interested in is what it was like to do what he did on the moon, what he was thinking in the moments before he stepped on the surface of another world, something no human had ever done in all of history. Hopefully he will change his mind at some point and grant interviews to serious journalists or reporters.

[PeZook]

Bah! Obviously, he's being slowly destroyed by guilt. He's an honest man threatened into perpetuating the biggest lie in history, and since he's not a very good liar, he retreated from the public spotlight!

Yes, that's what some sleazebags seriously say.

Armstrong was also regarded as one of the weaker "stick and rudder" pilots among the astronauts, but one of the best at understanding the workings of aircraft/spacecraft. Still, interesting article.

Okay, let's say you're piloting a two-man spacecraft utterly dependent on its onboard computer to remain pilotable at all, you're 380 thousand kilometers from home with no hope of rescue should things go wrong, and are about to undertake a landing on another world - a thing that nobody's done before...and then the computer spits out an alert code relating to the radar altimeter (the thing that tells you things you must know in order not to crash), and when you deal with that tiny problem, you notice the projected landing site is full of goddamned rocks, with no clear area in sight, while you are running dangerously low on fuel.

Armstrong was chosen as the commander of this mission because Deke Slayton thought he was experienced, would stay calm in a crisis and wasn't prone to panic. As Broomstick said, these qualities made him the best pilot there was to guide the LM down to the lunar surface, which he did. With 15 seconds of fuel left

[Skylon]

Armstrong was also regarded as one of the weaker "stick and rudder" pilots among the astronauts, but one of the best at understanding the workings of aircraft/spacecraft.

"Stick and rudder" is NOT the be all and end all of flying. I've seen people with godlike stick and rudder skills shipped home in boxes (I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally - coffins unloaded from airplanes used to transport burned remains home for the funeral). Yes, it's important but you need more than that.

A person of less-than-awesome but very competent stick and rudder skills who ALSO has a deep understanding of his environment and machinery, and who ALSO remains utterly cool in a crisis, is, in my opinion, a better choice and by extension a better overall pilot. Awesome stick and rudder doesn't mean jack if you're constantly getting yourself into trouble, or don't understand how to get out of trouble, or are in any way prone to panic.

It's even more important to have understanding and coolness when you're millions of miles from your home planet, utterly cut off from any aid, and in the extremely hostile environment of space.

Agreed, and certainly not questioning that. Merely pointing out what were seen as the man's strengths and weaknesses. His understanding of the vehicle certainly paid off on his first flight, Gemini 8 when the spacecraft started tumbling dangerously out of control.

[tim31]

I do wish, however, that he would give more interviews about the Apollo program. He's not going to be around forever and it would be unfortunate if the opportunity to learn more about his memories of the experiences he had in the program and on the moon are lost.

It really helps to bear this in mind when reading Jim Lovell's autobiography Lost Moon to get a hint of the frustration and anguish that the XIII crew would have felt(leaving aside the fear of not actually returning home).