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Showing posts with the label Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong - A Tribute to a true hero & engineer.

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Neil Armstrong; Credit Wikipedia, NASA. Neil Alden Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. He began his NASA career in Ohio. After serving as a naval aviator from 1949 to 1952, Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1955. His first assignment was with the NACA Lewis Research Center (now NASA Glenn) in Cleveland. Over the next 17 years, he was an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator for NACA and its successor agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As a research pilot at NASA's Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., he was a project pilot on many pioneering high speed aircraft, including the well known, 4000-mph X-15. He has flown over 200 different models of aircraft, including jets, rockets, helicopters and gliders. Armstrong transferred to astronaut status in 1962. He was assigned as command pilot for the...

What if Apollo 11 got stuck on the moon.

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For all the celebrations surrounding the first manned lunar landing of Apollo 11 1969 what is forgotten today is just how close they and the other Apollo missions flew to the edge of disaster. Apollo 11 came within seconds of aborting the landing because they had overshot the landing area and we're running low on fuel. This was only one of several issues with the Apollo missions that arose that could have led to the loss of the mission and the crew, though as it turned out only Apollo 13 came close to this actually happening. This does obviously excludes the Apollo one accident where the crew died because of the fire as they rehearsed the launch on January 27th 1967. Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice during the launch and although it knocked out several electrical systems the main navigation systems continue to work and the rest of mission proceeded successfully. On Apollo 16 the engine backup system malfunctioned on the command module as it orbited...

Was Neil Armstrong Misquoted? “One Small Step for Man”

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Was Neil Armstrong Misquoted? “ One Small Step for Man” When Neil Armstrong set his left boot on the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969, becoming the first person to ever walk on the moon. He then spoke some of the most famous words in the history of mankind, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” So true, so brilliant, so inspirational yet…so contradicting? The word “man” and “mankind” are used anonymously, meaning that the oh-so-famous quote quite simply put was, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for man.” Huh? Apollo 11 astronauts trained on Earth to take individual photographs in succession in order to create a series of frames that could be assembled into panoramic images. This frame from Aldrin's panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site is the only good picture of mission commander Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface.  (Image: © NASA) A one-lettered indefinite article is all it would take to turn this qu...