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Apollo_11.txt Neil_Armstrong.txt
Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong
Apollo 11 was the first spaceflight that landed humans on the Moon. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56:15 UTC; Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected  of lunar material for return to Earth. The third crew member, Michael Collins, piloted the Command Module Columbia alone in lunar orbit while they were on the Moon's surface. Armstrong and Aldrin spent just under a day on the lunar surface before rendezvousing with Columbia in lunar orbit. 

Launched by a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida, on July 16, Apollo 11 was the fifth manned mission of NASA's Apollo program. The Apollo spacecraft had three parts: a Command Module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that landed back on Earth; a Service Module (SM), which supported the Command Module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a Lunar Module (LM) that had two stages – a lower stage for landing on the Moon, and an upper stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit. After being sent toward the Moon by the Saturn V's upper stage, the astronauts separated the spacecraft from it and traveled for three days until they entered into lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin then moved into the Lunar Module Eagle and landed in the Sea of Tranquility. They stayed a total of about 21.5 hours on the lunar surface. The astronauts used Eagles  upper stage to lift off from the lunar surface and rejoin Collins in the Command Module. They jettisoned Eagle before they performed the maneuvers that blasted them out of lunar orbit on a trajectory back to Earth. They returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.

Broadcast on live TV to a world-wide audience, Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal proposed in 1961 by the U.S. President John F. Kennedy in a speech before the U.S. Congress: "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." 

Framework

Crew

Apollo 11 was the second all-veteran multi-person crew (the first being Apollo 10) in human spaceflight history.  A previous solo veteran flight had been made on Soyuz 1 in 1967 by Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. 

Collins was originally slated to be the Command Module Pilot (CMP) on Apollo 8 but was removed when he required surgery on his back and was replaced by Jim Lovell, his backup for that flight. After Collins was medically cleared, he took what would have been Lovell's spot on Apollo 11; as a veteran of Apollo 8, Lovell was transferred to Apollo 11's backup crew and promoted to backup commander.

Backup crew

In early 1969, Anders accepted a job with the National Space Council effective August 1969 and announced that he would retire as an astronaut on that date. At that point Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup Command Module Pilot in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch (at which point Anders would be unavailable if needed) and would later join Lovell's crew and ultimately be assigned as the original Apollo 13 CMP. 

Support crew

*Charlie Duke, Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM)
*Ronald Evans (CAPCOM)
*Owen K. Garriott (CAPCOM)
*Don L. Lind (CAPCOM)
*Ken Mattingly (CAPCOM)
*Bruce McCandless II (CAPCOM)
*Harrison Schmitt (CAPCOM)
*Bill Pogue
*Jack Swigert

Flight directors

*Cliff Charlesworth (Green Team), launch and EVA
*Gene Kranz (White Team), lunar landing
*Glynn Lunney (Black Team), lunar ascent

Call signs

After the crew of Apollo 10 named their spacecraft Charlie Brown and Snoopy, assistant manager for public affairs Julian Scheer wrote to Manned Spacecraft Center director George M. Low to suggest the Apollo 11 crew be less flippant in naming their craft. During early mission planning, the names Snowcone and Haystack were used and put in the news release,  but the crew later decided to change them.

The Command Module was named Columbia after the Columbiad, the giant cannon shell "spacecraft" fired by a giant cannon (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon.  The Lunar Module was named Eagle for the national bird of the United States, the bald eagle, which is featured prominently on the mission insignia.

Insignia

The Apollo 11 mission insignia was designed by Collins, who wanted a symbol for "peaceful lunar landing by the United States". He chose an eagle as the symbol, put an olive branch in its beak, and drew a lunar background with the Earth in the distance. NASA officials said the talons of the eagle looked too "warlike" and after some discussion, the olive branch was moved to the claws. The crew decided the Roman numeral XI would not be understood in some nations and went with "Apollo 11"; they decided not to put their names on the patch, so it would "be representative of everyone who had worked toward a lunar landing".  All colors are natural, with blue and gold borders around the patch.

When the Eisenhower dollar coin was released in 1971, the patch design provided the eagle for its reverse side.  The design was also used for the smaller Susan B. Anthony dollar unveiled in 1979, ten years after the Apollo 11 mission. 

Mementos

Neil Armstrong's personal preference kit carried a piece of wood from the Wright brothers' 1903 airplane's left propeller and a piece of fabric from its wing,  along with a diamond-studded astronaut pin originally given to Deke Slayton by the widows of the Apollo 1 crew. This pin had been intended to be flown on Apollo 1 and given to Slayton after the mission but following the disastrous launch pad fire and subsequent funerals, the widows gave the pin to Slayton and Armstrong took it on Apollo 11. 

Mission highlights

Launch and flight to lunar orbit

In addition to many people crowding highways and beaches near the launch site, millions watched the event on television, with NASA Chief of Public Information Jack King providing commentary. President Richard M. Nixon viewed the proceedings from the Oval Office of the White House.

A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A, part of the Launch Complex 39 site at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969 at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 a.m. EDT local time). It entered Earth orbit, at an altitude of  by , twelve minutes later. After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the Lunar Module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. After the Lunar Module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into orbit around the Sun. 

On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits  that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) about 12 mi southwest of the crater Sabine D (0.67408N, 23.47297E). The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and unlikely to present major landing or extravehicular activity (EVA) challenges. 

Lunar descent

On July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds early and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point.

Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6000 ft above the surface of the Moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected "1202" and "1201" program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. 

Landing

When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300 m diameter crater (later determined to be West crater, named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic control  and, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left.

Apollo 11 landed with less fuel than other missions, and the astronauts encountered a premature low fuel warning. This was later found to be the result of greater propellant 'slosh' than expected, uncovering a fuel sensor. On subsequent missions, extra anti-slosh baffles were added to the tanks to prevent this.

Throughout the descent, Aldrin had called out navigation data to Armstrong, who was busy piloting the LM. A few moments before the landing, a light informed Aldrin that at least one of the 67 in probes hanging from Eagle footpads had touched the surface, and he said: "Contact light!" Three seconds later, Eagle landed and Armstrong said "Shutdown." Aldrin immediately said "Okay, engine stop. ACA – out of detent." Armstrong acknowledged "Out of detent. Auto" and Aldrin continued "Mode control – both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm – off. 413 is in."

Charles Duke, CAPCOM during the landing phase, acknowledged their landing by saying "We copy you down, Eagle."

Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post landing checklist with "Engine arm is off", before responding to Duke with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed  change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Duke mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan— Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot."  

Two and a half hours after landing, before preparations began for the EVA, Aldrin radioed to Earth:

 He then took communion privately. At this time NASA was still fighting a lawsuit brought by atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair (who had objected to the Apollo 8 crew reading from the Book of Genesis) demanding that their astronauts refrain from broadcasting religious activities while in space. As such, Aldrin chose to refrain from directly mentioning taking communion on the Moon. Aldrin was an elder at the Webster Presbyterian Church, and his communion kit was prepared by the pastor of the church, the Rev. Dean Woodruff. Aldrin described communion on the Moon and the involvement of his church and pastor in the October 1970 edition of Guideposts magazine and in his book Return to Earth. Webster Presbyterian possesses the chalice used on the Moon and commemorates the event each year on the Sunday closest to July 20. 

The schedule for the mission called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period as they had been awake since early morning. However, they elected to forgo the sleep period and begin the preparations for the EVA early, thinking that they would be unable to sleep.

Lunar surface operations

The astronauts planned placement of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package (EASEP)  and the U.S. flag by studying their landing site through Eagle twin triangular windows, which gave them a 60° field of view. Preparation required longer than the two hours scheduled. Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his Portable Life Support System (PLSS). According to veteran Moon-walker John Young, a redesign of the LM to incorporate a smaller hatch had not been followed by a redesign of the PLSS backpack, so some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress.  

Several books indicate early mission timelines had Buzz Aldrin rather than Neil Armstrong as the first man on the Moon. 

At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface. The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) folded against Eagle side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15  UTC he set his left foot on the surface.   The first landing used slow-scan television incompatible with commercial TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor, significantly reducing the quality of the picture.  The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia.  Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth.  Although copies of this video in broadcast format were saved and are widely available, recordings of the original slow scan source transmission from the lunar surface were accidentally destroyed during routine magnetic tape re-use at NASA.

While still on the ladder, Armstrong uncovered a plaque mounted on the LM Descent Stage bearing two drawings of Earth (of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres), an inscription, and signatures of the astronauts and President Nixon. The inscription read:

After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder," six and a half hours after landing, Armstrong stepped off Eagle footpad and declared, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."    

Armstrong intended to say "That's one small step for a man", but the word "a" is not audible in the transmission, and thus was not initially reported by most observers of the live broadcast. When later asked about his quote, Armstrong said he believed he said "for a man", and subsequent printed versions of the quote included the "a" in square brackets. One explanation for the absence may be that his accent caused him to slur the words "for a" together; another is the intermittent nature of the audio and video links to Earth, partly because of storms near Parkes Observatory. More recent digital analysis of the tape claims to reveal the "a" may have been spoken but obscured by static.  

About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. 

Twelve minutes after the contingency sample was collected,  Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, and described the view with the simple phrase, "Magnificent desolation."

In addition to fulfilling President Kennedy's mandate to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s,  Apollo 11 was an engineering test of the Apollo system; therefore, Armstrong snapped photos of the LM so engineers would be able to judge its post-landing condition. He removed the TV camera from the MESA and made a panoramic sweep, then mounted it on a tripod 68 ft from the LM. The TV camera cable remained partly coiled and presented a tripping hazard throughout the EVA.

Armstrong said that moving in the lunar gravity, one-sixth of Earth's, was "even perhaps easier than the simulations ... It's absolutely no trouble to walk around." Aldrin joined him on the surface and tested methods for moving around, including two-footed kangaroo hops. The PLSS backpack created a tendency to tip backwards, but neither astronaut had serious problems maintaining balance. Loping became the preferred method of movement. The astronauts reported that they needed to plan their movements six or seven steps ahead. The fine soil was quite slippery. Aldrin remarked that moving from sunlight into Eagle shadow produced no temperature change inside the suit, though the helmet was warmer in sunlight, so he felt cooler in shadow.

The astronauts planted a specially designed U.S. flag on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Some time later, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House."  Nixon originally had a long speech prepared to read during the phone call, but Frank Borman, who was at the White House as a NASA liaison during Apollo 11, convinced Nixon to keep his words brief, to respect the lunar landing as Kennedy's legacy.  Armstrong thanked the President, and gave a brief reflection on the significance of the moment:

Nixon: Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the United States, but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and curiosity, and men with a vision for the future. It's an honor for us to be able to participate here today.

The MESA failed to provide a stable work platform and was in shadow, slowing work somewhat. As they worked, the moonwalkers kicked up gray dust which soiled the outer part of their suits, the integrated thermal meteoroid garment.

They deployed the EASEP, which included a passive seismograph and a Lunar Ranging Retroreflector (LRRR). Then Armstrong walked 196 ft from the LM to snap photos at the rim of Little West Crater  while Aldrin collected two core tubes. He used the geological hammer to pound in the tubes – the only time the hammer was used on Apollo 11. The astronauts then collected rock samples using scoops and tongs on extension handles. Many of the surface activities took longer than expected, so they had to stop documenting sample collection halfway through the allotted 34 minutes.

Three new minerals were discovered in the rock samples collected by the astronauts: armalcolite, tranquillityite, and pyroxferroite. Armalcolite was named after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins.

During this period, Mission Control used a coded phrase to warn Armstrong that his metabolic rates were high and that he should slow down. He was moving rapidly from task to task as time ran out. However, as metabolic rates remained generally lower than expected for both astronauts throughout the walk, Mission Control granted the astronauts a 15-minute extension.  In a 2010 interview, Armstrong, who had walked a maximum of 196 ft from the LM, explained that NASA limited the first moonwalk's time and distance because there was no empirical proof of how much cooling water the astronauts' PLSS backpacks would consume to handle their body heat generation while working on the Moon. 

Lunar ascent and return

Aldrin entered Eagle first. With some difficulty the astronauts lifted film and two sample boxes containing  of lunar surface material to the LM hatch using a flat cable pulley device called the Lunar Equipment Conveyor. Armstrong reminded Aldrin of a bag of memorial items in his suit pocket sleeve, and Aldrin tossed the bag down; Armstrong then jumped to the ladder's third rung and climbed into the LM. After transferring to LM life support, the explorers lightened the ascent stage for return to lunar orbit by tossing out their PLSS backpacks, lunar overshoes, one Hasselblad camera, and other equipment. They then pressurized the LM and settled down to sleep. 

President Nixon's speech writer William Safire had prepared In Event of Moon Disaster for the President to read on television in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the Moon.  The contingency plan originated in a memo from Safire to Nixon's White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such a disaster.   According to the plan, Mission Control would "close down communications" with the LM, and a clergyman would "commend their souls to the deepest of the deep" in a public ritual likened to burial at sea. The last line of the prepared text contained an allusion to Rupert Brooke's First World War poem, "The Soldier". The plan included presidential telephone calls to the astronauts' wives.

While moving within the cabin, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for lift off from the Moon. There was concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. Fortunately, a felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. Had this not worked, the Lunar Module circuitry could have been reconfigured to allow firing the ascent engine. 

After about seven hours of rest, the crew was awakened by Houston to prepare for the return flight. Two and a half hours later, at 17:54 UTC, they lifted off in Eagle ascent stage to rejoin Collins aboard Columbia in lunar orbit.

After more than 21½ total hours on the lunar surface, they had left behind scientific instruments that included a retroreflector array used for the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment and a Passive Seismic Experiment Package used to measure moonquakes. They also left an Apollo 1 mission patch, and a memorial bag containing a gold replica of an olive branch as a traditional symbol of peace and a silicon message disk. The disk carries the goodwill statements by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon and messages from leaders of 73 countries around the world. The disc also carries a listing of the leadership of the US Congress, a listing of members of the four committees of the House and Senate responsible for the NASA legislation, and the names of NASA's past and present top management.  (In his 1989 book, Men from Earth, Aldrin says that the items included Soviet medals commemorating Cosmonauts Vladimir Komarov and Yuri Gagarin.) Also, according to Deke Slayton's book Moonshot, Armstrong carried with him a special diamond-studded astronaut pin from Slayton.

Film taken from the LM Ascent Stage upon liftoff from the Moon reveals the American flag, planted some  from the descent stage, whipping violently in the exhaust of the ascent stage engine. Aldrin looked up in time to witness the flag topple: "The ascent stage of the LM separated ... I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over." Subsequent Apollo missions usually planted the American flags at least  from the LM to prevent them being blown over by the ascent engine exhaust.

After rendezvous with Columbia, Eagles ascent stage was jettisoned into lunar orbit on July 21, 1969, at 23:41 UTC. Just before the Apollo 12 flight, it was noted that Eagle was still likely to be orbiting the Moon. Later NASA reports mentioned that Eagle orbit had decayed, resulting in it impacting in an "uncertain location" on the lunar surface.  The location is uncertain because the Eagle ascent stage was not tracked after it was jettisoned, and the lunar gravity field is sufficiently non-uniform to make the orbit of the spacecraft unpredictable after a short time. NASA estimated that the orbit had decayed within months and would have impacted on the Moon.

On July 23, the last night before splashdown, the three astronauts made a television broadcast in which Collins commented: ... The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly ... We have always had confidence that this equipment will work properly. All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a number of a people ... All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, "Thank you very much."

Aldrin added: This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel that this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown ... Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from Psalms comes to mind. "When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"

Armstrong concluded: The responsibility for this flight lies first with history and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will; and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface. We would like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the spacecraft; who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people tonight, we give a special thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from Apollo 11.

On the return to Earth, a bearing at the Guam tracking station failed, potentially preventing communication on the last segment of the Earth return. A regular repair was not possible in the available time but the station director, Charles Force, had his ten-year-old son Greg use his small hands to reach into the housing and pack it with grease. Greg later was thanked by Armstrong. 

Splashdown and quarantine

 

On July 24, the astronauts returned home aboard the Command Module Columbia just before dawn local time (16:51 UTC) at , in the Pacific Ocean 2660 km east of Wake Island, 380 km south of Johnston Atoll, and 24 km from the recovery ship, .

At 16:44 UTC the drogue parachutes had been deployed and seven minutes later the Command Module struck the water forcefully. During splashdown, the Command Module landed upside down but was righted within 10 minutes by flotation bags triggered by the astronauts. "Everything's okay. Our checklist is complete. Awaiting swimmers", was Armstrong's last official transmission from the Columbia. A diver from the Navy helicopter hovering above attached a sea anchor to the Command Module to prevent it from drifting. Additional divers attached flotation collars to stabilize the module and position rafts for astronaut extraction. Though the chance of bringing back pathogens from the lunar surface was considered remote, it was considered a possibility and NASA took great precautions at the recovery site. Divers provided the astronauts with Biological Isolation Garments (BIGs) which were worn until they reached isolation facilities on board the Hornet. Additionally, astronauts were rubbed down with a sodium hypochlorite solution and the Command Module wiped with Betadine to remove any lunar dust that might be present. The raft containing decontamination materials was then intentionally sunk. 

A second Sea King helicopter hoisted the astronauts aboard one by one, where a NASA flight surgeon gave each a brief physical check during the  trip back to the Hornet.

After touchdown on the Hornet, the astronauts exited the helicopter, leaving the flight surgeon and three crewmen. The helicopter was then lowered into hangar bay #2 where the astronauts walked the 30 ft to the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) where they would begin their 21 days of quarantine. This practice would continue for two more Apollo missions, Apollo 12 and Apollo 14, before the Moon was proven to be barren of life and the quarantine process dropped. 

President Richard Nixon was aboard Hornet to personally welcome the astronauts back to Earth. He told the astronauts, "As a result of what you've done, the world has never been closer together before."  After Nixon departed, the Hornet was brought alongside the five-ton Command Module where it was placed aboard by the ship's crane, placed on a dolly and moved next to the MQF. The Hornet sailed for Pearl Harbor where the Command Module and MQF were airlifted to the Manned Spacecraft Center.

In accordance with the recently passed Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law, the astronauts were placed in quarantine for fear that the Moon might contain undiscovered pathogens and that the astronauts might have been exposed to them during their Moon walks. However, after almost three weeks in confinement (first in their trailer and later in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center), the astronauts were given a clean bill of health.  On August 10, 1969, the astronauts exited quarantine.

Celebration

On August 13, they rode in parades in their honor in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On the same evening in Los Angeles there was an official State Dinner to celebrate the flight, attended by members of Congress, 44 governors, the Chief Justice of the United States, and ambassadors from 83 nations at the Century Plaza Hotel. President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew honored each astronaut with a presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This celebration was the beginning of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour that brought the astronauts to 25 foreign countries and included visits with prominent leaders such as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Many nations honored the first manned Moon landing with special features in magazines or by issuing Apollo 11 commemorative postage stamps or coins.  

On September 16, 1969, the three astronauts spoke before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill. They presented two US flags, one to the House of Representatives and the other to the Senate, that had been carried to the surface of the Moon with them.

Moon race

The Soviet Union was secretly attempting to compete with the US in landing a man on the Moon but had been hampered by repeated failures in development of a launcher comparable to the Saturn V.  Meanwhile, they tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of unmanned probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11's launch, they launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the surface. The Jodrell Bank Observatory radio telescope in England was later discovered to have recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and this was published in July 2009 on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. 

Spacecraft location

The Command Module is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. It is in the central Milestones of Flight exhibition hall in front of the Jefferson Drive entrance, sharing the main hall with other pioneering flight vehicles such as the Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell X-1, the North American X-15, Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7, and Gemini 4. Armstrong's and Aldrin's space suits are displayed in the museum's Apollo to the Moon exhibit. The quarantine trailer, the flotation collar, and the righting spheres are displayed at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center annex near Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the various Apollo landing sites on the surface of the Moon, for the first time with sufficient resolution to see the descent stages of the lunar modules, scientific instruments, and foot trails made by the astronauts.

In March 2012 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos located the F-1 engines that launched Apollo 11 into space. The engines were found below the Atlantic Ocean's surface through the use of advanced sonar scanning. His team brought at least one of the five engines to the surface.   In July 2013, it was confirmed through serial numbers (2044) that F-1 engine parts brought up from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean were from the Apollo 11 launch. 

40th anniversary events

On July 15, 2009, Life.com released a photo gallery of previously unpublished photos of the astronauts taken by Life photographer Ralph Morse prior to the Apollo 11 launch. 

From July 16–24, 2009, NASA streamed the original mission audio on its website in real time 40 years to the minute after the events occurred. 
In addition, it is in the process of restoring the video footage and has released a preview of key moments. 

On July 20, 2009, the crew of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.  "We expect that there is, as we speak, another generation of kids out there who are looking up at the sky and are going to be the next Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin", Obama said. "We want to make sure that NASA is going to be there for them when they want to take their journey." 

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum set up a Flash website that rebroadcasts the transmissions of Apollo 11 from launch to landing on the Moon. 

A group of British scientists interviewed as part of the anniversary events reflected on the significance of the Moon landing:

It was carried out in a technically brilliant way with risks taken ... that would be inconceivable in the risk-averse world of today ... The Apollo programme is arguably the greatest technical achievement of mankind to date ... nothing since Apollo has come close [to] the excitement that was generated by those astronauts – Armstrong, Aldrin and the 10 others who followed them. 

On August 7, 2009, an act of Congress awarded the three astronauts a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award in the United States. The bill was sponsored by Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson.  

In July 2010, air-to-ground voice recordings and film footage shot in Mission Control during the Apollo 11 powered descent and landing was re-synchronised and released for the first time. 

Gallery

File:Apollo 11 Liftoff Spectators - GPN-2000-001852.jpg|Spectators camp out to watch the launch
File:Invite to Apollo 11 launch.png|Seating credential issued to viewers of the Apollo 11 launch
File:Engineers Working apollo 11.png|Launch Control Center before liftoff
File:Guenter Wendt and the Apollo 11 Crew.jpg|Collins, Aldrin and Armstrong consult with pad leader Guenter Wendt after Countdown Demonstration Test
File:Ap11-KSC-69PC-241HR.jpg|Roll-out of Saturn V AS-505 from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad
File:Apollo 11 Earth.jpg|The Earth as seen from Apollo 11 on the third day out
File:Apollo 11 Landing - first steps on the moon.ogv|Neil Armstrong describes the Moon's surface before setting foot on it
File:President Nixon telephones the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon.ogg|President Nixon speaks to Armstrong and Aldrin from the Oval Office
File:Land on the Moon 7 21 1969-repair.jpg|The Washington Post on Monday, July 21, 1969: "'The Eagle Has Landed'—Two Men Walk on the Moon"
File:NASA Armstrong 1969 scout.png|Neil Armstrong's certification: "I certify that this World Scout Badge was carried to the surface of the Moon on man's first lunar landing, Apollo XI, July 20, 1969."
File:First Man on Moon 1969 Issue-10c.jpg|First Man on the Moon Commemorative Issue of 1969 
File:Apollo 11 - Crew at the White House.jpg|Apollo 11 crew at the White House in 2004 Neil 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, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California.

A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. He performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott.  This mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his reentry control fuel to prevent a dangerous spin caused by a stuck thruster, in the first in-flight space emergency.

Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11, the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969. Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command/Service Module. Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. Armstrong and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

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

Early years

Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel in Auglaize County, near Wapakoneta, Ohio. Hansen 2005, pp. 49–50. He was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry,   and had two younger siblings, June and Dean. Stephen Armstrong worked as an auditor  for the Ohio state government; the family moved around the state repeatedly after Armstrong's birth, living in 20 towns. Neil's love for flying grew during this time, having gotten off to an early start when his father took his two-year-old son to the Cleveland Air Races. When he was five, he experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio on July 20, 1936 when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor, also known as the "Tin Goose". 

His father's last move was in 1944, back to Neil's birthplace, Wapakoneta, in Auglaize County. Armstrong attended Blume High School and took flying lessons at the grassy Wapakoneta airfield. He earned a student flight certificate on his 16th birthday, then soloed later in August; all before he had a driver's license.  Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. As an adult, he was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award.  On July 18, 1969, while flying towards the Moon inside the Columbia, Armstrong greeted the Scouts: "I'd like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho having a National Jamboree there this week; and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes".  Houston replied: "Thank you, Apollo 11. I'm sure that, if they didn't hear that, they'll get the word through the news. Certainly appreciate that."  Among the very few personal items that Neil Armstrong carried with him to the Moon and back was a World Scout Badge. 

In 1947, at age 17, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was the second person in his family to attend college. He was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The only engineer he knew (who had attended MIT) dissuaded him from attending, telling Armstrong that it was not necessary to go all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a good education. 

His college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan. Successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by two years of flight training and one year of service in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, then completion of the final two years of their bachelor's degree. Candidates had to promise to not marry until graduation, signed the "Aviation Guarantee" to serve on Active Duty for at least four years, and would not receive a promotion to Ensign until two years after they received their Midshipman's warrant.

Navy service

Armstrong's call-up from the Navy arrived on January 26, 1949, requiring him to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training at age 18. This lasted almost 18 months, during which he qualified for carrier landing aboard  and . On August 16, 1950, two weeks after his 20th birthday, Armstrong was informed by letter that he was a fully qualified Naval Aviator. 

His first assignment was to Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 7 at NAS San Diego (now known as NAS North Island). Two months later he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51), an all-jet squadron, and made his first flight in a jet, an F9F-2B Panther, on January 5, 1951. In June, he made his first jet carrier landing on  and was promoted the same week from Midshipman to Ensign. By the end of the month, Essex had set sail with VF-51 aboard, bound for Korea, where its VF-51 would act as ground-attack aircraft. 

Armstrong first saw action in the Korean War on August 29, 1951, as an escort for a photo reconnaissance plane over Songjin.  Five days later on September 3, he flew armed reconnaissance over the primary transportation and storage facilities south of the village of Majon-ni, west of Wonsan. While making a low bombing run at about 350 mph, Armstrong's F9F Panther was hit by anti-aircraft fire. While trying to regain control, he collided with a pole at a height of about 20 ft, which sliced off about three feet (1 m) of the Panther's right wing.  Armstrong flew the plane back to friendly territory, but due to the loss of the aileron, ejection was his only safe option. He planned to eject over water and await rescue by Navy helicopters, and therefore flew to an airfield near Pohang, but his ejection seat was blown back over land.  A jeep driven by a roommate from flight school picked Armstrong up; it is unknown what happened to the wreckage of No. 125122 F9F-2. 

Armstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air, most of which were in January 1952. He received the Air Medal for 20 combat missions, a Gold Star for the next 20, and the Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star.  Armstrong left the Navy at age 22 on August 23, 1952, and became a lieutenant (junior grade), in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He remained in the reserve for eight years, then resigned his commission on October 21, 1960. 

College years

After his service with the Navy, Armstrong returned to Purdue, where his best grades came in the four semesters following his return from Korea. He had previously earned average marks, but his final GPA was 4.8 out of 6.0.  He pledged the Phi Delta Theta fraternity  after his return and he wrote and co-directed its musical as part of the all-student revue; he was also a member of Kappa Kappa Psi  National Honorary Band Fraternity and a baritone player in the Purdue All-American Marching Band. Armstrong graduated in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

After returning to Purdue, he met Janet Elizabeth Shearon, who was majoring in home economics. According to the couple, there was no real courtship, and neither could remember the exact circumstances of their engagement, except that it occurred while Armstrong was working at the NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. They were married on January 28, 1956, at the Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. When he moved to Edwards Air Force Base, he lived in the bachelor quarters of the base, while Janet lived in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. After one semester, they moved into a house in Antelope Valley. Janet never finished her degree, a fact she regretted later in life. 

The couple had three children together: Eric, Karen, and Mark.  In June 1961, daughter Karen was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the middle part of her brain stem; X-ray treatment slowed its growth, but her health deteriorated to the point where she could no longer walk or talk. Two-year-old Karen died of pneumonia, related to her weakened health, on January 28, 1962. 

Armstrong later completed his Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southern California in 1970.  He would eventually be awarded honorary doctorates by several universities.

Test pilot

Following his graduation from Purdue, Armstrong decided to become an experimental research test pilot. He applied at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base, which was later redesignated as the ‘‘NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center’’ in 2014.  Although the committee had no open positions, it forwarded his application to the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, where Armstrong began working in March 1955.  Armstrong's stint at Cleveland lasted a couple of months, and by July 1955 he had returned to Edwards AFB for a new job. 

On his first day at Edwards, Armstrong was tasked his first assignments, which were to pilot chase planes during releases of experimental aircraft from modified bombers. He also flew the modified bombers, and on one of these missions had his first flight incident at Edwards. On March 22, 1956, Armstrong was in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress,  which was to air-drop a Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. He sat in the right-hand pilot seat while the left-hand seat commander, Stan Butchart, flew the B-29. 

As they ascended to 30000 ft, the number-four engine stopped and the propeller began windmilling (rotating freely) in the airstream. Hitting the switch that would stop the propeller's spinning, Butchart found the propeller slowed but then started spinning again, this time even faster than the other engines; if it spun too fast, it would break apart. Their aircraft needed to hold an airspeed of 210 mph to launch its Skyrocket payload, and the B-29 could not land with the Skyrocket attached to its belly. Armstrong and Butchart brought the aircraft into a nose-down alignment to increase speed, then launched the Skyrocket. At the instant of launch, the number-four engine propeller disintegrated. Pieces of it damaged the number-three engine and hit the number-two engine. Butchart and Armstrong were forced to shut down the number-three engine, due to damage, and the number-one engine, due to the torque it created. They made a slow, circling descent from 30000 ft using only the number-two engine, and landed safely. 

As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the paraglider research vehicle program (Paresev).

Armstrong's first flight in a rocket plane was on August 15, 1957, in the Bell X-1B, to an altitude of . The nose landing gear broke on landing, which had happened on about a dozen previous flights of the Bell X-1B due to the aircraft's design.  He later flew the North American X-15 seven times; his penultimate flight reached an altitude of .

Armstrong was involved in several incidents that went down in Edwards folklore and/or were chronicled in the memoirs of colleagues. The first occurred during his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, while Armstrong tested a self-adjusting control system. He flew to a height of over , (the highest he flew before Gemini 8), but the aircraft nose was held up too long during descent and the X-15 bounced off the atmosphere back up to . At that altitude, the air is so thin that aerodynamic surfaces have almost no effect. He flew past the landing field at Mach 3 (2000 mph) at over 100000 ft in altitude, and ended up 40 mi south of Edwards. After sufficient descent, he turned back toward the landing area, and barely managed to land without striking Joshua trees at the south end. It was the longest X-15 flight in both time and distance from the ground track. 

Four days later, Armstrong was involved in a second incident, when he flew for the only time with Chuck Yeager. Their job, flying a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, was to evaluate Smith Ranch Dry Lake for use as an emergency landing site for the X-15. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote that he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings after recent rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyway. As they attempted a touch-and-go, the wheels became stuck and they had to wait for rescue. Armstrong tells a different version of events, where Yeager never tried to talk him out of it and they made a first successful landing on the east side of the lake. Then Yeager told him to try again, this time a bit slower. On the second landing, they became stuck and according to Armstrong, Yeager was in fits of laughter. 

Many of the test pilots at Edwards praised Armstrong's engineering ability. Milt Thompson said he was "the most technically capable of the early X-15 pilots." Bill Dana said Armstrong "had a mind that absorbed things like a sponge." Those who flew for the Air Force tended to have a different opinion, especially people like Yeager and Pete Knight, who did not have engineering degrees. Knight said that pilot-engineers flew in a way that was "more mechanical than it is flying," and gave this as the reason why some pilot-engineers got into trouble: their flying skills did not come naturally. 

A few weeks later on May 21, 1962, Armstrong was involved in what Edwards' folklore called the "Nellis Affair." He was sent in a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter to inspect Delamar Dry Lake in southern Nevada, again for emergency landings. He misjudged his altitude, and also did not realize that the landing gear had not fully extended. As he touched down, the landing gear began to retract; Armstrong applied full power to abort the landing, but the ventral fin and landing gear door struck the ground, damaging the radio and releasing hydraulic fluid. Without radio communication, Armstrong flew south to Nellis Air Force Base, past the control tower, and waggled his wings, the signal for a no-radio approach. The loss of hydraulic fluid caused the tail-hook to release, and upon landing, he caught the arresting wire attached to an anchor chain, and dragged the chain along the runway. 

It took thirty minutes to clear the runway and rig an arresting cable and Armstrong telephoned Edwards and asked for someone to collect him. Milt Thompson was sent in an F-104B, the only two-seater available, but a plane Thompson had never flown. With great difficulty, Thompson made it to Nellis, but a strong crosswind caused a hard landing and the left main tire suffered a blowout. The runway was again closed to clear it, and Bill Dana was sent to Nellis in a T-33 Shooting Star, but he almost landed long—and the Nellis base operations office decided that to avoid any further problems, it would be best to find the three NASA pilots ground transport back to Edwards.

Armstrong made seven flights in the X-15 from November 1960 to July 1962. He reached a top altitude of  in the X-15-3,  and a top speed of Mach 5.74 (3989 mph) in the X-15-1; he left the Dryden Flight Research Center with a total of 2,400 flying hours.  Over his career, he flew more than 200 different models of aircraft.

Astronaut career

In 1958, Armstrong had been selected for the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. In November 1960, he was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space plane under development by Boeing for the U.S. Air Force, and on March 15, 1962, he was selected by the U.S. Air Force as one of seven pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane when it got off the design board. 

In the months after the announcement that applications were being sought for the second group of NASA astronauts, Armstrong became more and more excited about the prospects of both the Apollo program and of investigating a new aeronautical environment. Armstrong's astronaut application arrived about a week past the June 1, 1962, deadline. Dick Day, with whom Armstrong had worked closely at Edwards, saw the late arrival of the application and slipped it into the pile before anyone noticed.  At Brooks Air Force Base at the end of June, Armstrong underwent a medical exam that many of the applicants described as painful and at times seemingly pointless. 

Deke Slayton called Armstrong on September 13, 1962, and asked whether he would be interested in joining the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of what the press dubbed "the New Nine"; without hesitation, Armstrong said yes. The selections were kept secret until three days later, although newspaper reports had been circulating since earlier that year that he would be selected as the "first civilian astronaut."  Armstrong was one of two civilian pilots selected for the second group; the other was Elliot See, also a former naval aviator. See was scheduled to command Gemini 9, but died in a T-38 crash in 1966 that also took the life of crewmate Charles Bassett. Armstrong was the first American civilian in space, but the first civilian was Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, nearly three years earlier. A textile worker and amateur parachutist, she was aboard Vostok 6 when it launched on June 16, 1963. 

Gemini program

Gemini 8

The crew assignments for Gemini 8 were announced on September 20, 1965, with Armstrong as Command Pilot and David Scott as Pilot. Scott was the first member of the third group of astronauts to receive a prime crew assignment. The mission launched on March 16, 1966; it was to be the most complex yet, with a rendezvous and docking with the unmanned Agena target vehicle, the second American extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by Scott. In total, the mission was planned to last 75 hours and 55 orbits. After the Agena lifted off at 10 a.m. EST, the Titan II carrying Armstrong and Scott ignited at 11:41:02 am EST, putting them into an orbit from where they would chase the Agena. 

The rendezvous and first-ever docking between two spacecraft was successfully completed after 6.5 hours in orbit. Contact with the crew was intermittent due to the lack of tracking stations covering their entire orbits. Out of contact with the ground, the docked spacecraft began to roll, and Armstrong attempted to correct this with the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) of the Gemini spacecraft. Following the earlier advice of Mission Control, they undocked, but found that the roll increased dramatically to the point where they were turning about once per second, which meant the problem was in their Gemini's attitude control. Armstrong decided the only course of action was to engage the Reentry Control System (RCS) and turn off the OAMS. Mission rules dictated that once this system was turned on, the spacecraft would have to reenter at the next possible opportunity. It was later thought that damaged wiring made one of the thrusters become stuck in the on position. 

Throughout the astronaut office there were a few people, most notably Walter Cunningham, who publicly stated that Armstrong and Scott had ignored the malfunction procedures for such an incident, and that Armstrong could have salvaged the mission if he had turned on only one of the two RCS rings, saving the other for mission objectives. These criticisms were unfounded; no malfunction procedures were written and it was possible to turn on only both RCS rings, not just one or the other. Gene Kranz wrote, "the crew reacted as they were trained, and they reacted wrong because we trained them wrong." The mission planners and controllers had failed to realize that when two spacecraft are docked together, they must be considered to be one spacecraft. 

Armstrong himself was depressed  that the mission had been cut short, canceling most mission objectives and robbing Scott of his EVA.

Gemini 11

The last assignment for Armstrong in the Gemini program was as the back-up Command Pilot for Gemini 11, announced two days after the landing of Gemini 8. Having trained for two flights, Armstrong was quite knowledgeable about the systems and was more in a teaching role  for the rookie backup Pilot, William Anders. The launch was on September 12, 1966,  with Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon on board, who successfully completed the mission objectives, while Armstrong served as CAPCOM.

Following the flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Armstrong and his wife to take part in a 24-day goodwill tour of South America.  Also on the tour, which took in 11 countries and 14 major cities, were Dick Gordon, George Low, their wives, and other government officials. In Paraguay, Armstrong impressed dignitaries by greeting them in their local language, Guarani;  in Brazil he talked about the exploits of the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont, who was regarded as having beaten the Wright brothers with the first flying machine with his 14-bis. 

Apollo program

On January 27, 1967, the date of the Apollo 1 fire, Armstrong was in Washington, D.C., with Gordon Cooper, Dick Gordon, Jim Lovell and Scott Carpenter for the signing of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty. The astronauts chatted with the assembled dignitaries until 6:45 p.m. when Carpenter went to the airport, and the others returned to the Georgetown Inn, where they each found messages to phone the Manned Spacecraft Center. During these telephone calls, they learned of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Armstrong and the group spent the rest of the night drinking scotch and discussing what had happened. 

On April 5, 1967, the same day the Apollo 1 investigation released its report on the fire, Armstrong assembled with 17 other astronauts for a meeting with Deke Slayton. The first thing Slayton said was, "The guys who are going to fly the first lunar missions are the guys in this room."  According to Eugene Cernan, Armstrong showed no reaction to the statement. To Armstrong it came as no surprise—the room was full of veterans of Project Gemini, the only people who could fly the lunar missions. Slayton talked about the planned missions and named Armstrong to the backup crew for Apollo 9, which at that stage was planned to be a medium Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module-Command/Service Module combination. After design and manufacturing delays in the Lunar Module (LM), Apollo 9 and Apollo 8 swapped crews. Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong would command Apollo 11. 

To give the astronauts experience with how the LM would fly on its final landing descent, NASA commissioned Bell Aircraft to build two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles, later augmented with three Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV). Nicknamed the "Flying Bedsteads", they simulated the Moon's one-sixth of Earth's gravity by using a turbofan engine to support the remaining five-sixths of the craft's weight. On May 6, 1968, about 100 feet (30 m) above the ground, Armstrong's controls started to degrade and the LLTV began banking.  He ejected safely (later analysis suggested that if he had ejected half a second later, his parachute would not have opened in time). His only injury was from biting his tongue. Even though he was nearly killed, Armstrong maintained that without the LLRV and LLTV, the lunar landings would not have been successful, as they gave commanders valuable experience in the behavior of lunar landing craft. 

Apollo 11

After Armstrong served as backup commander for Apollo 8, Slayton offered him the post of commander of Apollo 11 on December 23, 1968, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon.  In a meeting that was not made public until the publication of Armstrong's biography in 2005, Slayton told him that although the planned crew was Armstrong as commander, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins, he was offering the chance to replace Aldrin with Jim Lovell. After thinking it over for a day, Armstrong told Slayton he would stick with Aldrin, as he had no difficulty working with him and thought Lovell deserved his own command. Replacing Aldrin with Lovell would have made Lovell the Lunar Module Pilot, unofficially the lowest ranked member, and Armstrong could not justify placing Lovell, the commander of Gemini 12, in the number 3 position of the crew. 

A March 1969 meeting between Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Chris Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in some part because NASA management saw Armstrong as a person who did not have a large ego.  A press conference held on April 14, 1969, gave the design of the LM cabin as the reason for Armstrong's being first; the hatch opened inwards and to the right, making it difficult for the lunar module pilot, on the right-hand side, to exit first. Slayton added, "Secondly, just on a pure protocol basis, I figured the commander ought to be the first guy out ... I changed it as soon as I found they had the time line that showed that. Bob Gilruth approved my decision."  At the time of their meeting, the four men did not know about the hatch consideration. The first knowledge of the meeting outside the small group came when Kraft wrote his 2001 autobiography. 

On July 16, 1969, Armstrong received a crescent Moon carved out of Styrofoam from the pad leader, Guenter Wendt, who described it as a key to the Moon. In return, Armstrong gave Wendt a ticket for a "space taxi" "good between two planets". 

Voyage to the Moon

During the Apollo 11 launch, Armstrong's heart reached a top rate of 110 beats per minute.  He found the first stage to be the loudest—much noisier than the Gemini 8 Titan II launch—and the Apollo CSM was relatively roomy compared to the Gemini capsule. This ability to move around was suspected to be the reason why none of the Apollo 11 crew suffered from space sickness, while members of previous crews did. Armstrong was especially happy, as he had been prone to motion sickness as a child and could experience nausea after doing long periods of aerobatics. 

The objective of Apollo 11 was to land safely rather than to touch down with precision on a particular spot. Three minutes into the lunar descent burn, Armstrong noted that craters were passing about two seconds too early, which meant the Eagle would probably touch down beyond the planned landing zone by several miles.  As the Eagles landing radar acquired the surface, several computer error alarms appeared. The first was a code 1202 alarm, and even with their extensive training, neither Armstrong nor Aldrin was aware of what this code meant. They promptly received word from CAPCOM Charles Duke in Houston that the alarms were not a concern; the 1202 and 1201 alarms were caused by an executive overflow in the lunar module computer. As described by Buzz Aldrin in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, the overflow condition was caused by his own counter-checklist choice of leaving the docking radar on during the landing process, so the computer had to process unnecessary radar data and did not have enough time to execute all tasks, dropping lower-priority ones. Aldrin stated that he did so with the objective of facilitating re-docking with the CM should an abort become necessary, not realizing that it would cause the overflow condition.

When Armstrong noticed they were heading towards a landing area which he believed was unsafe, he took over manual control of the LM, and attempted to find an area which seemed safer, taking longer than expected, and longer than most simulations had taken.  For this reason, there was concern from mission control that the LM was running low on fuel.  Upon landing, Aldrin and Armstrong believed they had about 40 seconds worth of fuel left, including the 20 seconds worth of fuel which had to be saved in the event of an abort.  During training, Armstrong had landed the LLTV with less than 15 seconds left on several occasions, and he was also confident the LM could survive a straight-down fall from 50 ft if needed. Analysis after the mission showed that at touchdown there were 45 to 50 seconds of propellant burn time left. 

The landing on the surface of the Moon occurred several seconds after 20:17:40 UTC on July 20, 1969,  at which time one of three 67 in-long probes attached to three of the Lunar Module's four legs made contact with the surface, a panel light inside the LM lit up, and Aldrin called out, "Contact light." Armstrong shut the engine off and said, "shutdown." As the LM settled onto the surface, Aldrin said, "Okay. Engine stop", then they both called out some post-landing checklist items. After a ten-second pause, Duke acknowledged the landing with, "We copy you down, Eagle." Armstrong announced the landing to Mission Control and the world with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Aldrin and Armstrong celebrated with a brisk handshake and pat on the back before quickly returning to the checklist of tasks needed to ready the lunar module for liftoff from the Moon should an emergency unfold during the first moments on the lunar surface.    After Armstrong had confirmed touch-down, Duke re-acknowledged, and expressed the flight controllers' anxiety: "Roger, ... Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot." During the landing, Armstrong's heart rate, at one point, reached 160 beats per minute, according to the NASA Apollo 11 Mission Report.

First Moon walk

Although the official NASA flight plan called for a crew rest period before extra-vehicular activity, Armstrong requested that the EVA be moved to earlier in the evening, Houston time. Once Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened and Armstrong made his way down the ladder first.

At the bottom of the ladder Armstrong said, "I'm going to step off the LEM now" (referring to the Apollo Lunar Module). He then turned and set his left boot on the lunar surface at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969,  then spoke the famous words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." 

Armstrong prepared his famous epigram on his own. In a post-flight press conference, he said that he decided on the words "just prior to leaving the LM [lunar module]."  In a 1983 interview in Esquire Magazine, Armstrong explained to George Plimpton: "I always knew there was a good chance of being able to return to Earth, but I thought the chances of a successful touchdown on the moon surface were about even money—fifty–fifty ... Most people don't realize how difficult the mission was. So it didn't seem to me there was much point in thinking of something to say if we'd have to abort landing."   In 2012, brother Dean Armstrong claimed that Neil had shown him a note with a draft of the line months before the launch,  although historian Andrew Chaikin, who had interviewed the astronaut in 1988 for his book A Man on the Moon, disputed that he had ever claimed coming up with the line spontaneously during the mission. 

Recordings of Armstrong's transmission do not evidence the indefinite article "a" before "man", though  NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static had obscured it. Armstrong stated he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, he eventually admitted he must have dropped the "a". He later said he "would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been". 

It has since been claimed that acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a";  Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time.   Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis.  Armstrong found Ford's analysis "persuasive."  However, the article by Ford was published on Ford's own web site rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman wrote of their skepticism of Ford's claims on the blog Language Log.  Thus, NASA's transcript continues to show the "a" in parentheses. 

When Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast live via the BBC and many other stations worldwide. The estimated global audience at that moment was 450 million listeners,  out of a then estimated world population of 3.631 billion people. 

About 20 minutes after the first step, Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface and became the second human to set foot on the Moon, and the duo began their tasks of investigating how easily a person could operate on the lunar surface. Early on, they unveiled a plaque commemorating their flight, and also planted the flag of the United States. The flag used on this mission had a metal rod to hold it horizontal from its pole. Since the rod did not fully extend, and the flag was tightly folded and packed during the journey, the flag ended up with a slightly wavy appearance, as if there were a breeze.  Shortly after their flag planting, President Richard Nixon spoke to them by a telephone call from his office. The President spoke for about a minute, after which Armstrong responded for about thirty seconds. 

In the entire Apollo 11 photographic record, there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected. The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of photographic tasks to be performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera. 

After helping to set up the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package, Armstrong went for a walk to what is now known as East Crater, 65 yd east of the LM, the greatest distance traveled from the LM on the mission. Armstrong's final task was to remind Aldrin to leave a small package of memorial items to deceased Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, and Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee.  The time spent on EVA during Apollo 11 was about two and a half hours, the shortest of any of the six Apollo lunar landing missions; each of the subsequent five landings were allotted gradually longer periods for EVA activities—the crew of Apollo 17, by comparison, spent over 22 hours exploring the lunar surface.

In a 2010 interview, Armstrong explained that NASA limited his Moon walk to two hours because they were unsure how the spacesuits would handle the extreme temperature of the Moon. 

In 2013, Popular Science's photo gallery included a photo that Armstrong took of Aldrin but his own image is visible on Aldrin's helmet as one of the best astronaut selfies. 

Return to Earth

After they re-entered the LM, the hatch was closed and sealed. While preparing for the liftoff from the lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that, in their bulky spacesuits, they had broken the ignition switch for the ascent engine; using part of a pen, they pushed the circuit breaker in to activate the launch sequence.  The lunar module then continued to its rendezvous and docked with Columbia, the command and service module. The three astronauts returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, to be picked up by the . 

After being released from an 18-day quarantine to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the crew were feted across the United States and around the world as part of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour. Armstrong then took part in Bob Hope's 1969 USO show, primarily to Vietnam. 

Later from October 29–31, 1969 he and the rest of the Apollo 11 astronauts visited the city of Tehran, capital of Iran, where he met Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rest of the nation's royal family.

In May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union to present a talk at the 13th annual conference of the International Committee on Space Research; after arriving in Leningrad from Poland, he traveled to Moscow where he met Premier Alexei Kosygin. He was the first westerner to see the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 and was given a tour of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, which Armstrong described as "a bit Victorian in nature".  At the end of the day, he was surprised to view delayed video of the launch of Soyuz 9—it had not occurred to Armstrong that the mission was taking place, even though Valentina Tereshkova had been his host and her husband, Andriyan Nikolayev, was on board. 

Life after Apollo

Teaching

Armstrong announced shortly after the Apollo 11 flight that he did not plan to fly in space again.  He was appointed Deputy Associate Administrator for aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but served in this position for only a year, and resigned from it and NASA as a whole in 1971. 

He accepted a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati,  having decided on Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater, Purdue, because it had a small aerospace department; he hoped that the faculty members would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship with only the USC master's degree.  He began the work while stationed at Edwards years before, and finally completed it after Apollo 11 by presenting a report on various aspects of Apollo, instead of a thesis on the simulation of hypersonic flight. The official job title he received at Cincinnati was University Professor of Aerospace Engineering. After teaching for eight years, he resigned in 1979 without explaining his reason for leaving. 

NASA accident investigations

Armstrong served on two spaceflight accident investigations. The first was in 1970, after Apollo 13, where as part of Edgar Cortright's panel, he produced a detailed chronology of the flight. Armstrong opposed the report's recommendation to re-design the service module's oxygen tanks, the source of the explosion.  In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Rogers Commission which investigated the Space-shuttle Challenger disaster of that year. As vice-chairman, Armstrong was in charge of the operational side of the commission. 

Business activities

After Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, he acted as a spokesman for several businesses. The first company to successfully approach him was Chrysler, for whom he appeared in advertising starting in January 1979. Armstrong thought they had a strong engineering division, plus they were in financial difficulty. He later acted as a spokesman for other companies, including General Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. He acted as a spokesman for U.S. businesses only. 

Along with spokesman duties, he also served on the board of directors of several companies, including Marathon Oil, Learjet, Cinergy (Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company), Taft Broadcasting, United Airlines, Eaton Corporation, AIL Systems and Thiokol.  He joined Thiokol's board after he served on the Rogers Commission; the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed due to a problem with the Thiokol-manufactured solid rocket boosters. He retired as chairman of the board of EDO Corporation in 2002. 

North Pole expedition 

In 1985, professional expedition leader Mike Dunn organized a trip to take the then "greatest explorers" to the North Pole. The group included Armstrong, Edmund Hillary, Hillary's son Peter, Steve Fossett, and Patrick Morrow, and arrived on April 6, 1985. Armstrong said he was curious to see what the North Pole looked like from ground level, as he'd only seen it from the Moon. 

Television and film

In 2010, he voiced the character of Dr. Jack Morrow in Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, a 2010 animated educational sci-fi adventure film initiated by JPL/NASA through a grant from Jet Propulsion Lab.  Between 1991 and 1993, he hosted First Flights with Neil Armstrong, an aviation history documentary series on A&E. 

Personal life

Unlike former astronauts who actively sought political careers after leaving NASA (such as U.S. Senators John Glenn (D-OH, 1974–1999) and Harrison Schmitt (R-NM, 1977–1983)), Armstrong was approached by political groups from both parties, but declined all offers. He described his political leanings as favoring states' rights and opposing 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 himself as a deist.   His mother later said that Armstrong's religious views caused her grief and distress in later life as she was more religious.  His official biography also describes him as a deist.

In 1972, Armstrong was welcomed into the town of Langholm, Scotland, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong; he was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the town his home.  The Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed 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. Their first son Eric was born in 1957, followed by daughter, Karen, in 1959. Karen died of a brain tumor in January 1962, and the couple's second son Mark was born in 1963.   Armstrong's first wife, Janet, divorced him in 1994, after 38 years of marriage.  He had met his second wife, Carol Held Knight (b. 1945),  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. They were married on June 12, 1994, in Ohio, and then had a second ceremony, at San Ysidro Ranch, in California. He lived in Indian Hill, Ohio. 

Armstrong is generally referred to as a "reluctant" American Hero. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, recalled Armstrong's legendary humility. "He didn't feel that he should be out huckstering himself," the former Ohio senator told CNN.  "He was a humble person, and that's the way he remained after his lunar flight, as well as before." After 1994, Armstrong refused all requests for autographs because he found that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries were in circulation; any requests that were sent to him received a form letter in reply, saying that he had stopped signing. Although his no-autograph policy was well known, author Andrew Smith observed people at the 2002 Reno Air Races still trying to get signatures, with one person even claiming, "If you shove something close enough in front of his face, he'll sign."  He also stopped sending out congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, because he believed these letters should come from people who know the Scouts personally. 

Use of Armstrong's name, image, and famous quote caused him problems over the years. MTV wanted to use his quote for its now-famous identity depicting the Apollo 11 landing when it launched in 1981, but he refused. Armstrong sued Hallmark Cards in 1994 after they used his name and a recording of the "one small step" quote in a Christmas ornament without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court  for an undisclosed amount of money which Armstrong donated to Purdue. 

In May 2005, Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal dispute with his barber of 20 years, Mark Sizemore.  After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission.  Armstrong threatened legal action against Sizemore unless he returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to retrieve the hair, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice. 

Since the early 1980s, Armstrong has been the subject of a hoax saying that he converted to Islam after hearing the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, while walking on the Moon. The Indonesian singer Suhaemi wrote a song called "Gema Suara Adzan di Bulan" ("The Resonant Sound of the Call to Prayer on the Moon") which described Armstrong's conversion; the song was discussed widely in various Jakarta news outlets in 1983.  Other similar hoax stories were seen in Egypt and Malaysia. In March 1983, the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a global message to Muslims saying that Armstrong "has not converted to Islam".Hansen 2005, pp. 630–631. However, the hoax was not completely quieted; it surfaced occasionally for the next three decades. A part of the confusion stems from the similarity between Armstrong's American residence in Lebanon, Ohio, and the country Lebanon which has a majority population of Muslims. 

Illness and death

Armstrong underwent vascular bypass surgery on August 7, 2012, to relieve blocked coronary arteries.  Although he was reportedly recovering well,  he developed complications in the hospital and died on August 25, in Cincinnati, Ohio. After his death, Armstrong was described, in a statement released by the White House, as "among the greatest of American heroes—not just of his time, but of all time".   The statement further said that Armstrong had carried the aspirations of the United States' citizens and that he had delivered "a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten." 

His family released a statement describing Armstrong as a "reluctant American hero [who had] served his nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut ... While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves. For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."  This prompted many responses, including the Twitter hashtag "#WinkAtTheMoon". 

Armstrong's colleague on the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin, said that he was "deeply saddened by the passing. I know I am joined by millions of others in mourning the passing of a true American hero and the best pilot I ever knew. I had truly hoped that on July 20th, 2019, Neil, Mike and I would be standing together to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of our moon landing ... Regrettably, this is not to be."   Apollo 11 Command Module pilot Michael Collins said, of Armstrong, "He was the best, and I will miss him terribly."   NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said that: "As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own".  

A tribute was held in Armstrong's honor on September 13 at Washington National Cathedral, whose Space Window depicts the Apollo 11 mission and holds a sliver of Moon rock amid its stained-glass panels. In attendance were Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmates, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin; Eugene A. Cernan, the Apollo 17 mission commander and last man to walk on the Moon; and former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. In a eulogy, Charles Bolden said, "Neil will always be remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own, but it was the courage, grace, and humility he displayed throughout this life that lifted him above the stars." Eugene Cernan recalled Armstrong's low-fuel approach to the Moon: "When the gauge says empty we all know there's a gallon or two left in the tank!" Diana Krall sang the song "Fly Me to the Moon". Michael Collins led prayers. Aldrin and Collins left immediately after the event. The Apollo 15 commander, David Scott, spoke to the press; he recalled the Gemini 8 mission with Armstrong when he spoke, possibly for the first time, about an incident in which glue spilled on his harness and prevented it from locking correctly minutes before the hatch had to be sealed or the mission aborted. Armstrong then called on back-up pilot Pete Conrad to solve the problem, which he did, to continue the mission without stopping the countdown clock. "That happened because Neil Armstrong was a team player, he always worked on behalf of the team." 

On September 14, Armstrong's cremated remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean during a burial-at-sea ceremony aboard the .  Flags were flown at half-staff on the day of Armstrong's funeral. 

Legacy

Armstrong received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Sylvanus Thayer Award, the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association, and the Congressional Gold Medal. The lunar crater Armstrong, 31 mi (50 km) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong  are named in his honor. Armstrong was also inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor, the National Aviation Hall of Fame, and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.   Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crewmates were the 1999 recipients of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.

Throughout the United States, there are more than a dozen elementary, middle and high schools named in his honor,  and many places around the world have streets, buildings, schools, and other places named for Armstrong and/or Apollo.  In 1969, folk songwriter and singer John Stewart recorded "Armstrong", a tribute to Armstrong and his first steps on the Moon. Purdue University announced in October 2004 that its new engineering building would be named Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering in his honor;  the building cost $53.2 million and was dedicated on October 27, 2007, during a ceremony at which Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue Astronauts.  In 1971, Armstrong was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point for his service to the country.  The Armstrong Air and Space Museum, in Armstong's hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, and the airport in New Knoxville, where he took his first flying lessons when he was fifteen, were named after him.   

Armstrong's authorized biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was published in 2005. For many years, Armstrong turned down biography offers from authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James A. Michener, but agreed to work with James R. Hansen after reading one of Hansen's other biographies. 

In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Armstrong was ranked as the #1 most popular space hero,  and in 2013, Flying magazine ranked him at #1 on its list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation". 

The press often asked Armstrong for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, Armstrong said that a manned mission 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." In 2010, he made a rare public criticism of the decision to cancel the Ares 1 launch vehicle and the Constellation Moon landing program. 
In an open public letter also signed by Apollo veterans Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan, he noted, "For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature".  Armstrong had also publicly recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission, when 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 later said. 

On November 18, 2010, at age 80, Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he were asked. 

In September 2012, the US Navy announced that the first  is named RV Neil Armstrong. The ship, christened on March 28, 2014, was launched on March 29, 2014, passed sea trials August 7, 2015 and delivered to the Navy on September 23, 2015.  It is a modern oceanographic research platform capable of supporting a wide range of oceanographic research activities conducted by academic groups. 

The Space Foundation named Neil Armstrong as a recipient of its 2013 General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award.
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