Neil Armstrong is Amazing

[trumad]

The first man on the moon... Wow!

[GCP]

1. Yeah and he piloted it down when the computer failed

Totally cool about it, even though there was only about 17 seconds worth of fuel left by the time he landed it. If he'd gone over that limit, they wouldn't have got back. But to hear his voice as he took it down, it was like he was driving to the supermarket on a Saturday morning.
The guy was indeed the Right Stuff.

[FatSlob]

2. And, he doesn't think of himself as a hero.

Infact, if asked about it, he likes to change the subject, he gets embarrassed by the compliments. He's also pretty good at golf, and a fantastic July 4th companion. My favorite part about him, is that he almost never gives his last name when introducing himself to somebody, and insists that everybody call him "Neil". A great guy.

[jus_the_facts]

3. I watched THE RIGHT STUFF....LAST NIGHT......

....how ironical!! :D

[Heyo]

4. something sad occurred to me yesterday...

As I watched Neil Armstrong on television.....

.. and Buzz ALdrin...

These guys are getting on in years, and eventually they will pass away.. and that will likely be before we have even close to matched their acheivements....

..they are the only humans alive who were THERE.. and actually stood there on the stark landscape of the moon and looked around.. soaked in every bit of it... the sensation... the sights....

.... those men of Apollo represent the entirety of our collective experience of being on the moon...(excluding those who watched from Earth)...

They are our collective memory of actually being there... and it deeply saddens me in a way I can't describe that soon there may be nobody left alive who remembers what it is like to actually STAND on the moon.. on another celestial body besides our earth....look at the stark clarity of the distant hills and curvature of the moon which you can see all the way to and past, because there is no air...

It saddens me that with all the bullshit going on in the world, we have lost our human spirit of adventure......people's minds are alseep.... that news stations cut away from history being made (re: Mars rovers) to talk about sniffing panties!!!!(Kobe Bryant case)

SHAME on CNN for that..... hang your heads in shame, you are responsible for the paralyzation of America...(yeah, I know it's not a word)

Wake up!!

If I were president, on my very *first day* I would completely dissolve the D.E.A. and put all that money into the space program instead...for starters.

I would create the option of a voluntary space tax, that people could choose to pay or not if they wanted to contribute to space exploration...

Nothing unified the world for even just a moment like the first moon landing...

Heyo

[GCP]

5. Nice post, Heyo

And so very true.

[Heyo]

6. Thanks

:toast:

[pmbryant]

8. Twelve men walked on the Moon. Only nine are still with us.

Neil Armstrong
Buzz Aldrin
Pete Conrad (died a few years ago, RIP)
Alan Bean
Alan Shepard (first American in space, as well; alas, he died a few years back)
Ed Mitchell
Dave Scott
Jim Irwin (the first to die, back in the early 1990s)
John Young
Charlie Duke
Gene Cernan
Harrison Schmitt

A number of others orbited the Moon and did not land (such as Michael Collins on Apollo 11).

Most of these guys are well into their seventies by now, I'd guess, so in another ten years, a lot fewer of them will be around. :-(

--Peter

[HuckleB]

7. Neil's great, but it was Stretch Armstrong who got me through...

many a boring summer afternoon as a child.

Say what you will, but Stretch is an unsung hero of the masses.