Neil Armstrong: A hidden celebrity

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Interesting the different paths Armstrong and Aldrin took after their historic mission. I loled at the Aldrin rap part.

Just this week I finished First Man, a biography of Armstrong. Interesting read.

At some point next week I hope to shoot an interview with the astronaut who was CAPCOM on 20 July 1969 and who was later the tenth man to walk on the moon, Charlie Duke.

He lives in a nearby town.

Armstrong's the best kind of big damn hero: the one who thinks he really wasn't all that. His quiet life after such a large accomplishment ensures there won't be anything to taint his legendary status.

I cringed.

According to First Man, he asked Lindbergh for advice about how he should conduct himself, because he wanted to have a "normal" life, once he got back from the Moon, and he knew that this was going to be difficult, since his name was always going to be listed with those of Columbus, Magellan, and the like. Would that another American set foot on the Moon before Armstrong leaves us.

As much as Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk, guys like Shepherd, Glenn, and Armstrong made me hungry to be a Naval Aviator- hungry enough to actually go and do it, although I never came remotely close to their lofty heights. Those men will always be like demigods to me.

IIRC, some in the space program have maintained that Armstrong's desire to live a low profile "normal life" might well have undermined support for the U.S. space program when it desperately needed highly public "heroes".

Of course, one might say that Armstrong should've expected that when his crews turn came up for the Apollo 11 mission (it could easily have been Pete Conrad's crew).

But I really don't think Armstrong considered that.

He (and others) probably never figured that there would be "12 men who walked on the moon" some 40 years later.

He probably figured that by now there would be hundreds of astronauts who had traveled to the moon, making his accomplishment standout somewhat less.

Neil stayed with NASA until the early 70s, and did a couple of world tours on their behalf. Not really much more he could have done, except for run for political office. IIRC, many of the astronauts said that they felt betrayed by NASA and the American people when the Apollo missions got the ax, because they couldn't understand why folks didn't realize the level of importance of the work that they were doing.

I'm surprised we haven't built a monument in Washington to commemorate the Apollo program.

You are one strange dude.

WAB, I think I know where Dayton's coming from on this one.

One of my first thoughts when I started reading this thread was how Armstrong's life after Apollo turned out like Indiana Jone's. You know, the scene where he's trying to be a "normal" teacher and all the students are treating him like a hero. (I wonder if NA's where they got that idea from)

But what if Armstrong had been a more public figure? What if he'd been a more active proponent of the space program? I'm sure he'd have been more understated than Aldrin and he might have been able to convince more people in his way than Buzz did in his.

It's a sad commentary on American life that Armstrong isn't listed as a hero by more of our people. I'd probably guess that Indiana Jones, a character in a movie of all things, is listed by more people as a role model or hero than he is.

Why would they feel betrayed by NASA?

It was President Nixon who cut the Apollo program drastically.

It was also the Nixon Admin. that cut the legs out from under the space shuttle by only giving NASA enough money to design and build "half of a space shuttle".

I'm not joking.

The space shuttle concept was perfectly valid.

The concept that is.

But after approving the program (mainly to satisfy GOP contributors from the aerospace industry) the Nixon Admin. only gave NASA enough money to design and build the space shuttle orbiter, not the booster.

So NASA ended up with the half assed "stage and a half" design that included the two SRBs and External Tank.

All this is documented in T.A. Heppenheimer's books "The Space Shuttle Decision".

I was under the impression that the "small step" line was something NASA deliberately fed him.

Either way, . That's my kind of hero, too.

The astronauts felt betrayed because NASA just "accepted" the axing of Apollo and didn't put up much of a fight (in their eyes).

Interesting this should come up today. There's a thread going on my hobby board on how Buzz is a media whore simply for letting Revell use his name on Apollo models:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=259674

Someone there also points out how Armstrong's quietude may have been harmful.

Armstrong is a true hero. He shunned the limelight, did his job, but when he was needed he showed up. He showed up for the Columbia memorial to honor those who passed. That to me speaks of a truly honorable man.

These guys are just like everyone else- individuals with different personalalities.

Gotta love 'em both even though they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Especially the part where a 70+ year old Buzz decks that assclown on camera who got in his face and called him a liar, claiming the moon landings were faked.

That's never gonna get old!!

Its a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Armstrong, however. If he'd been more public and vocal, not only would he have not had a relatively "normal" (he was apparently, often mobbed when he was a professor in Cincinnati), but if his efforts turned out to be futile (which they probably would have been, Nixon killed Apollo as a "fuck you" to JFK), then people would still be saying that he "didn't do enough."

I do admit, however, it would have been interesting, if after they got back from the Moon, Neil and Buzz teamed up to run for the White House. Don't know how well they would have done (either during the campaign or in office), but I doubt that the country would be seriously harmed if a couple of ex-fighter pilots who were engineers were running things for a while.

They might handle it better than frickin' lawyers!

NASA had little choice in the matter.

During the Nixon Admin. there were people who wanted to abolish NASA outright.

While I don't think Nixon was quite willing to go that far, he was annoyed that his admin. was funding an agency that accomplished the moon landing that

"Kennedy and LBJ got credit for".

On the Democratic side, Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale who became vice president under Carter wanted to eliminate NASA completely.

Interesting bit of trivia that I just saw. The shuttle launch today was the same pad that Apollo 11 used exactly 40 years ago today to lift off for the moon.

Yet another reason to dislike Mondale...

But, yeah, without JFK's death and LBJ's trying to make political hay off of it, the moon program might still be treading water.

I'm sure that wasn't an accident.

No accident at all.

NASA used as much of the Apollo era instructure as possible (VAB, Launch Pads, Crawler-Transporter) in order to save money.

Want a real example of how they saved money, look up the manned missions to Skylab...

The fact that they managed to get the launch off today probably was, though. This was the sixth try to launch for this mission, including something like the third in the last week.

It wasn't. They actually meant to launch it.

Don't forget Tricky Dick. His White House had NASA game the numbers of what the shuttle could do, and then cut funding for NASA. When the shuttle failed to perform as promised (which it could never have done), that enabled pricks like Mondale to keep NASA's budget frozen, and directly led to the death of the Challenger and Columbia crews. If I ever make it to Nixon's grave, you can bet I intend unload a very full bladder on it.

I meant that they used the actual pad that Apollo 11 used instead of a different one.

I mean, 40th anniversary of the launch, I'm sure it was just a coincidence that they used the same pad as Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. I mean, it's not like NASA has a PR department or anything.

That the weather and other delays caused the launch to be delayed until today was pretty cool, though.

Eh... To me Nixon is one of the best demonstrations of how much personality plays a role when it comes to powerful actors. Watergate and his cutting of NASA had nothing to do with policy but with his own paranoia and personal grudges.

I actually think that all in all Nixon wasn't that bad as President overall, but a deeply flawed individual.

Randomness:


So my teacher's father actually worked at Baikonur!

After he quit working there, he wasn't allowed to leave the USSR FOR 25 YEARS.

Also Baikonur isn't actually in Baikonur.... they just used that name to throw people off. It's actually at Turatam.