First Man on the Moon - Astronaut Neil Armstrong
   
 
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First Man on the Moon

 

First Man on the Moon - Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong     The first successful manned mission to the Moon will always remain a profoundly heroic page in the human history. In 1969, with the space technologies being still rather primitive, but the exploration spirit and scientific curiosity burning high and bright, the USA started its dramatic Apollo lunar program. On July 20th of 1969, the first in the history of the humankind manned flight to land on another celestial body was accomplished with a fascinating triumph. Astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man from the planet Earth to step on the surface of the Moon. Let us have a closer look at the courageous figure of the first man on the Moon and the details of that unprecedented lunar venture.

     Apollo 11, launched on July 16 of 1969 from the Kennedy Space Center, happened to be the fifth mission of the American Apollo program on the manned exploration of the Moon. That was also the third manned flight towards the Moon. The crew on board of Apollo 11 included commander Neil Alden Armstrong, lunar module pilot Edwin Eugene Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins. Almost a million people were witnessing the spacecraft launch from the nearby beaches and highways. Many more - hundred of millions, including American President Nixon, were anxiously watching that grand event on TV.

     By July 11th, Apollo had reached the orbit of the Moon and started preparing for the historical lunar landing. The convenient, smooth and flat, landing site in the area of the Sea of Tranquility had been found by the earlier missions of Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5. The descending of the lunar module Eagle carrying Armstrong and Aldrin was controlled by computers from the NASA Mission Control Center in Texas, but their guiding was complicated by numerous reported program alarms and was even threatening to land the module on an unsafe rocky spot far from the planned place of landing. Neil Armstrong had to quickly react to prevent a disaster. He took manual control of their lunar module and, at last, at 20:17 UTC of the 20th of July, the first manned mission successfully landed on the Moon. They only had 30 seconds of fuel left to complete the landing!

     In six and a half hours after the Eagle had descended, Neil Armstrong, for the first time in the history of the humankind, stepped onto the surface of the Moon. His lunar words "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" became famous all over the world. Later, he was followed by Aldrin. Despite some technical complications, hundreds of millions of people on the Earth were able to see the first B/W images of ghostly-looking people in spacesuits moving on the surface of the Moon.

     For the remaining hours that the piloted lunar module spent on the Moon's surface, the astronauts planted on the Moon the US flag and left a mission patch with various Earth messages. They also were experimenting with getting adjusted to the lunar gravity and balance by trying different step methods, were photographing, writing down their impressions and observations, and drilling the core layer of the lunar surface to obtain samples of the Moon's soil. More than 48 pounds of lunar material were collected and loaded into the module. The astronauts were working so hard and even got a warning from the Control Center to slow down, as their metabolic rate elevated to a dangerously high level. Having completed their dramatic mission, both astronauts were able to safely return the Eagle back to the lunar orbit. Several hours later, Apollo 11 with the three courageous astronauts on board was on its safe way back to the Earth, which they reached on July 24th. The unprecedented, first manned voyage to a surface of another cosmic body had been accomplished with a stunning triumph.

     By the time of the heroic mission of Apollo 11th, the first man to step onto the Moon, flight's commander Neil Armstrong, had already achieved a long and glorious list of accomplishments. Born on August 5,1930 in Ohio, Armstrong got his Bachelor's Degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955, and later completed a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. Until 1952, Armstrong had served as a naval aviator with participation in the Korean War, in the course of which he was shot down while piloting his F9F Panther, but was able to safely return the plane to a friendly territory. He took place in almost eighty flight missions of the Korean War and was awarded a number of combat medals.

     Later, Armstrong became an experimental test pilot outside of the military forces, and in the 1962 was chosen to join the NASA as a pilot-engineer for future space voyages. The astronauts corps selection process was kept secret from the general public, but later it was announced that Armstrong was appointed the first civilian pilot of the NASA space program. Prior to the mission of Apollo 11, Armstrong had been a back-up pilot in the lunar Gemini missions, until, finally, he was selected to participate in the Apollo program and become the first man to walk on the lunar surface. After that historical flight, Armstrong, together with his fellow crew members, was awarded a special Presidential Medal of Freedom. Neil Armstrong

     Soon after the Apollo flight, Armstrong announced his decision not to fly into space anymore. He had remained with NASA until 1971, when he became a professor of aerospace engineering in the University of Cincinnati. Within the period of 1985 - 1986, Neil Armstrong worked on the National Commission on Space and took part of its daily activities, including the investigation of the tragic explosion of Challenger in 1986. Currently, Neil Armstrong lives in Ohio; he has been married twice since 1956, with three children, one of whom died due to a brain cancer. Armstrong's only authorized official biography was written by James A. Michener in 2005.

     When Neil Armstrong was asked by journalists about his thoughts on that historical first manned voyage to the Moon, the astronaut admitted that he had not had much hope of both landing on the Moon and returning back to the Earth. He said that the members of the crew had been profoundly ecstatic and actually surprised that they had managed to successfully accomplish the most daring venture of the humankind - sending the first humans to walk on the Moon...

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