“I can honestly say — and it’s a big surprise to me — that I have never had a dream about being on the moon,” he said. Niel Armstrong Dead At 82...

[Selene]

Godspeed - Soar With The Angels...

NASA/Associated Press

Neil Armstrong, photographed inside the lander after the moonwalk on July 20, 1969.

Neil Armstrong, First Man on the Moon, Is Dead at 82

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth,” the president had said. "No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important to the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."

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1969: A Moon Odyssey

The end-of-decade goal was met with more than five months to spare. “Houston: Tranquility Base here,” Mr. Armstrong radioed after the spacecraft settled onto the moon. “The Eagle has landed.”

“Roger, Tranquility,” the Houston staff member radioed back. "We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot."

The third astronaut on the mission, Michael Collins, circled the moon in the mother ship Columbia 60 miles overhead. In all, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 and the last moon mission in 1972.

Neil Alden Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on a farm near Wapakoneta in western Ohio. He took his first airplane ride at age 6 and developed a fascination with aviation that prompted him to build model airplanes and conduct experiments in a homemade wind tunnel.

As a boy, he worked at a pharmacy and took flying lessons. He was licensed to fly at 16, before he got his driver’s license.

He enrolled in Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering but was called to duty with the Navy in 1949 and flew 78 combat missions in Korea.

After the war, Mr. Armstrong finished his degree from Purdue and later earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California. He became a test pilot with what evolved into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, flying more than 200 kinds of aircraft from gliders to jets.

Mr. Armstrong was accepted into NASA’s second astronaut class in 1962 — the first, including Mr. Glenn, was chosen in 1959 — and commanded the Gemini 8 mission in 1966. After the first space docking, he brought the capsule back in an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean when a wildly firing thruster kicked it out of orbit.

He was backup commander for the historic Apollo 8 mission at Christmastime in 1968. In that flight, Commander Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell and Bill Anders circled the moon 10 times, and paving the way for the lunar landing seven months later.

An estimated 600 million people — a fifth of the world’s population — watched and listened to the landing, the largest audience for any single event in history.

Parents huddled with their children in front of the family television, mesmerized by what they were witnessing. Farmers abandoned their nightly milking duties, and motorists pulled off the highway and checked into motels just to see the moonwalk.

Television-less campers in California ran to their cars to catch the word on the radio. Boy Scouts at a camp in Michigan watched on a generator-powered television supplied by a parent.

Afterward, people walked out of their homes and gazed at the moon, in awe of what they had just seen. Others peeked through telescopes in hopes of spotting the astronauts.

The three astronauts were given ticker tape parades in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and later made a 22-nation world tour. A homecoming in Wapakoneta drew 50,000 people to the city of 9,000.

In 1970, Mr. Armstrong was appointed deputy associate administrator for aeronautics at NASA but left the next year to teach aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

He remained there until 1979 and during that time bought a 310-acre farm near Lebanon, where he raised cattle and corn. He stayed out of public view, accepting few requests for interviews or speeches.

From 1982 to 1992, Mr. Armstrong was chairman of Computing Technologies for Aviation, a company in Charlottesville, Va. that supplies computer information management systems for business aircraft.

He then became chairman of AIL Systems Inc., an electronic systems company in Deer Park, N.Y.

He married Carol Knight in 1999, and had two sons from a previous marriage.

Those who knew him said he enjoyed golfing with friends, was active in the local YMCA and frequently ate lunch at the same restaurant.

In February 2000, when he agreed to announce the top 20 engineering achievements of the 20th century as voted by the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Armstrong said there was one disappointment relating to his moonwalk.

“I can honestly say — and it’s a big surprise to me — that I have never had a dream about being on the moon,” he said.

[caroljane]

I am not surprised he never dreamed of it. We dream of what we have not achieved, not of what we have.

[Selene]

I am not surprised he never dreamed of it. We dream of what we have not achieved, not of what we have.

That seems contradictory Carol.

I think he was referring to prior to his being on the moon, not after...correct?

[Jerry Biggers]

Lnk to .excerpt from "APOLLO 11" by Ayn Rand (from the Ayn Rand Institute. The full article may be read there http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_apollo11

[Reidy]

Neither have I. Quick survey: how many of you out there in OL-Land have had this dream? Extra-credit question: how many of you have been on the moon? One more no for me.

[caroljane]

I am not surprised he never dreamed of it. We dream of what we have not achieved, not of what we have.

That seems contradictory Carol.

I think he was referring to prior to his being on the moon, not after...correct?

I don't know, "dream about" to me, connoted actual nighttime dreams, so I took it to mean after - but you are probably right.

[Selene]

I am not surprised he never dreamed of it. We dream of what we have not achieved, not of what we have.

That seems contradictory Carol.

I think he was referring to prior to his being on the moon, not after...correct?

I don't know, "dream about" to me, connoted actual nighttime dreams, so I took it to mean after - but you are probably right.

Actually, now that I read in again, you might be right.

[Selene]

I cannot stand this fucking President's narcissism and this is the most offensive example ever!

This worm should not be on the same planet as Neil Armstrong.

Somehow Barack Obama has to insert himself into every thing that happens in America. Barack Obama took to his

Tumblr page

and instead of posting a picture of Neil Armstrong, to remember the American hero who was the first man to step foot on the Moon, Obama put up a picture of a silhouette of himself gazing up at the Moon.

Sadly, instead of honoring the life and accomplishments of Neil Armstrong, Barack Obama thought of no one but himself and used the death of a true American hero to provide a photo op for hims

http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/08/obama-dishonors-neil-armstrong-with-photo-of-himself/#ixzz24oCgfQHT