First man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, is dead at 82

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How many men actually walked on the moon?  What were their names?

No one can tell you.

But everyone can tell you — if they lived through those days — the name of the first man to step foot on our moon: Neil Armstrong.  (Young people who didn’t live through those days can barely tell you the name of the state they inhabit, much less the name of one astronaut, however.)

Mr Armstrong passed away Saturday in Cincinnati, Ohio — of complications arising from his four-way cardiac bypass surgery on August 8th, three days after his 82nd birthday on August 5th (1930).

[The correct answer: 12 men walked on the moon.  They were:

Neil Armstrong – Apollo 11 – July, 1969
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin – Apollo 11 – July, 1969
Charles “Pete” Conrad – Apollo 12 – November, 1969
Alan Bean – Apollo 12 – November, 1969
Alan Shepard – Apollo 14 – February, 1971
Edgar Mitchell – Apollo 14 – February, 1971
David Scott – Apollo 15 – July, 1971
James Irwin – Apollo 15 – July, 1971
John Young – Apollo 16 – April, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing)
Charles Duke – Apollo 16 – April, 1972
Eugene Cernan – Apollo 17 – December, 1972 (also on Apollo 10, without landing)
Harrison Schmitt – Apollo 17 – December, 1972

Another little known fact: no one has walked on the moon who was born after 1935.]

Neil Armstrong was an unassuming, humble engineer, quite the introvert, who eschewed the public limelight.  He was the last of the Apollo 11 astronauts to have a biography written.  He avoided interviews.  He provided a very rare interview in 2006 to Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes.  His authorized biography came out that year as well — a full 37 years after the event.

Some people still, to this day, believe the Apollo 11 mission was staged, as was the actual landing on the moon.

In the first public display of a conspiracy theory, rolled forth was Peter Hyam’s 1978 film Capricorn One.

Then came this video:

On the heels of the success of Kubrick’s 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, people postulate that Kubrick’s facile usage of special effects, with Douglas Trumbull, could have been responsible for the clever faking of Apollo 11.

I didn’t believe it then, I don’t believe it now.

I say: God bless Neil Armstrong, truly one of the Last of the American Heroes.

Today, I feel diminished.  Just as I felt when Ronald Reagan passed in 2004, and my father passed in 2009.

America’s Heroes are dwindling, and they are aging.

We need more American Heroes — desperately.

BZ

 

 

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12 thoughts on “First man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, is dead at 82”

  1. Faked? No.

    I don’t understand the methods, first off, but some serious “ham” radio operators tracked much of the communications. They had the ability to triangulate and pinpoint those transmissions. One of them was a late uncle. He said the radio transmissions were from the moon.

    Agree with the hero. Plus, he was a tremendous pilot. He saved an X-15 that went off course, in a test, by sheer skill. We shouldn’t forget he had to take over and land on the moon by direct control.

  2. WSF, that’s quite true. And using a system that had the computational power of some pens, today.

    Can you imagine? Actually that far away, in a place where NO ONE can possibly help you, and you have NO idea if ANYthing will actually work at the moment it’s called upon to function?

    BZ

  3. Those first space explorers sure had some major guts! You’re right, America does desperately need more heroes! They will have to come from the 1% I guess, because I sure didn’t see any here types in those “occupy” camps.

  5. There are no heroes in the Occupy Camps, because there are primarily few actual MEN anymore — males who DIDN’T grow up playing T-Ball and told they were “special” and that spelling really didn’t count, and that what they meant EMOTIONALLY was more important.

    And if they DARED to act like boys, they were told to sit down, to shut up, that they were BAD, and then they were DRUGGED to within an inch of their lives.

    No wonder we have so few MEN in this pussified society.

    But that’s okay, just ask Obama: soldiers aren’t important anyway.

    BZ

  6. Here is a true event hardly anyone remembers about Neil.

    Who’s Mr. Gorsky? IN CASE YOU DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW THIS LITTLE TIDBIT OF TRIVIA,ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL ARMSTRONG WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT ON THE MOON.

    HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON THE MOON, “THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND,” WERE TELEVISED TO EARTH
    AND HEARD BY MILLIONS.*

    BUT JUST BEFORE HE RE-ENTERED THE LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK – “GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY”.

    MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS.

    OVER THE YEARS, MANY PEOPLE QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE – ‘GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY’ STATEMENT MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.

    ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY , FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION TO ARMSTRONG. THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED. MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD NOW ANSWER THE QUESTION.

    IN 1938, WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A SMALL MID-WESTERN TOWN , HE WAS PLAYING BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE BACKYARD. HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOR’S YARD BY THEIR BEDROOM WINDOW. HIS NEIGHBORS WERE MR. AND MRS. GORSKY. AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS. GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY “SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU’LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON !”

    TRUE STORY. It broke the place up !!

  7. I have seen several blogs asking: WHERE WERE YOU when Armstrong set foot on the moon…

    I, along with the entire family, was glued to the TV, we just had ONE, and we were awed by the history we witnessed, I will NEVER forget that moment in time!

    I was 15, close to 16, and I was a hell of a lot more attuned to events than the kids of today. It’s a shame what we have allowed our youth to become!

    • I remember vividly. I was watching TV at a house in Centerville, Ohio, some friends of my parents.

      Black and white all the way.

      BZ

    • Because being a supporter of America is bad, being willing to sacrifice is bad — all of the things that I ONCE knew as good are now considered bad by the Left and by the current administration.

      BZ

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