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

[Brovane]

Not to be picky but the first jet powered flight was in 1939, the Heinkel 178 only had a 10 minutes endurance but it was the first, 30 years before Apollo 11. While it was balsy for Kennedy to make it a goal the real hero's IMO are the engineers who started with rockets like the Redstone in the early '60's to the massive Saturn V, not to mention developing space docking, fuel cells, a lander and ascent stage all from complete scratch in less than 9 years, one of mankind's greatest engineering feats IMO..

Second that. A incredible amount of tech had to be developed in very short order. Kennedy stacked some political capital on getting all this paid for. However considering that it was to beat the Soviets it wasn't that hard to get the ok to go get the money from Congress. The engineers worked very hard to develop everything under a short period of time. A lot of new tech had to be developed and procedures developed to put people on the moon. A lot of times the astronauts where right in the middle of this as the new technology was being developed.

 

[Sonikku]

WTF First Lance Armstrong is discredited, then Neil Armstrong dies. Next thing you know the syrup in my Stretch is going to go hard.

 

[BUTCH1]

Second that. A incredible amount of tech had to be developed in very short order. Kennedy stacked some political capital on getting all this paid for. However considering that it was to beat the Soviets it wasn't that hard to get the ok to go get the money from Congress. The engineers worked very hard to develop everything under a short period of time. A lot of new tech had to be developed and procedures developed to put people on the moon. A lot of times the astronauts where right in the middle of this as the new technology was being developed.

Interesting that in the mid 30's most of the scientific community looked at Robert Goddard, the man who pioneered liquid fueled rocket engines as an outsider playing with toys. The German scientists however were eager to learn from him and as WW2 was ending the V2 was such an amazing piece of technology everyone wanted the scientists and the technology but with "operation paperclip" ensured we got the hardware and those who designed it, the Saturn V was chiefly designed by Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph who developed the V2 during WW2...

 

[rcpratt]

I wish I knew more about space/flight history.

 

[Phoenix86]

R.I.P.

A legend died. :'(

 

[Nintendesert]

I wish I knew more about space/flight history.

Too bad you don't have access to the most impressive piece of knowledge dissemination in the history of humankind.

 

[rcpratt]

Too bad you don't have access to the most impressive piece of knowledge dissemination in the history of humankind.

Too bad I don't have enough time to do that much reading.

I guess that's kind of silly to say, considering how often I'm on here.

 

[Printer Bandit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlqvlu_di6A&feature=player_embedded

 

[BUTCH1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlqvlu_di6A&feature=player_embedded

LOL, "really, the international space station is there, you can see it with with binoculars", trying to explain to some knuckle-draggers that if you can't believe this then WTF?..

 

[BUTCH1]

Too bad I don't have enough time to do that much reading.

I guess that's kind of silly to say, considering how often I'm on here.

Wiki " Saturn V", still, It remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status..that should stimulate some good reading, it was one godawful huge rocket...

 

[Brovane]

Wiki " Saturn V", still, It remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status..that should stimulate some good reading, it was one godawful huge rocket...

Yes it was. Then the Nixon administration threw away all this capability to develop a shuttle that has never lived up to all the Hype.

 

[Brovane]

LOL, "really, the international space station is there, you can see it with with binoculars", trying to explain to some knuckle-draggers that if you can't believe this then WTF?..

A lot of them have a hard time believing that we ever left LEO. They believe that we can get into LEO but anything outside of LEO you will die from radiation in their belief.

 

[ichy]

He will be missed.

It greatly saddens me that we may be approaching a time where there is no one left alive that has set foot on the moon...

http://xkcd.com/893/

 

[ichy]

The greatest man who ever lived.

I think that Neil Armstrong himself would have been the first person to disagree with that.

Not that I wish to take anything away from his achievements, but part of the reason he was such an amazing individual was his humility. Armstrong was an incredibly accomplished person but it took the work and dedication of thousands of equally amazing people to get to the moon.

 

[ichy]

great guy
wish he would've said more in public about his moon experience

he had one shot at a great line and flubbed it

Pete Conrad had a great line when he became the third man on the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad#Apollo

Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.

 

[Brovane]

Pete Conrad had a great line when he became the third man on the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad#Apollo

Pete Conrad would have been the first man on the Moon except for the that NASA flipped the mission parameters for Apollo 8 and 9. They where going to launch LM first and test it out in Earth Orbit before they flew to the moon. However the LM wasn't ready so they decided to send Apollo 8 around the moon with no LM. When the changed the parameters they also swapped backup crews. The normal rotation was 3 missions after being on the backup crew you flew as the prime crew. So Conrad was pushed out from Apollo 11 commander to Apollo 12 commander.

Apparently Mike Collins told Neil that if he really wanted to have fun. When he stepped on the lunar surface he would scream "Oh my god what is that" and then cut the feed. Apparently Neil decided not to do that.

 

[Brovane]

Pete Conrad had a great line when he became the third man on the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad#Apollo

Gemini 8 prime and backup crews. Pete Conrad has the yellow hat on and Neil has the lamp shade on his head. 3 out of 4 of those Astronauts in this picture would later command Apollo missions. The 4th one was the commander for Apollo 18 until it was canceled.

 

[ichy]

Ha, I like that Michael Collins story. I really enjoyed his autobiography, I thought it was pretty interesting how he described the Apollo 11 crew as "amiable strangers." Despite what they went through together they never became particularly close.

Re: Conrad as first man on the moon, if the LM hadn't been delayed it's also possible that Apollo 10 would have landed first rather than Apollo 11. After Apollo 8 Deke Slayton was also prepared to break with the crew rotation system and offered the first landing to Frank Borman's crew, but Borman said he was done and turned it down. The chain of events that led to Neil Armstrong being first is pretty interesting.

 

[amdhunter]

Was it the radiation from the Van Allen belt that did him in? I would have thought it would have offed him much sooner.

That belt must be fake.

 

[Brovane]

Ha, I like that Michael Collins story. I really enjoyed his autobiography, I thought it was pretty interesting how he described the Apollo 11 crew as "amiable strangers." Despite what they went through together they never became particularly close.

Re: Conrad as first man on the moon, if the LM hadn't been delayed it's also possible that Apollo 10 would have landed first rather than Apollo 11. After Apollo 8 Deke Slayton was also prepared to break with the crew rotation system and offered the first landing to Frank Borman's crew, but Borman said he was done and turned it down. The chain of events that led to Neil Armstrong being first is pretty interesting.

Overall Mike Collin's I think is one of the most eloquent of the Apollo Astronauts. He wrote his auto-biography himself instead of using a ghost writer which is what usually the other astronauts did. He is also oveall a good speaker and is good at describing things that might be very foreign to the audience. He was really good "In the Shadow of the Moon" and did a really good job talking about how the Moon looks from orbit. His auto-bio has a lot of good stories in it and was also written soon after he left NASA so I think a lot of the details where still fresh in his mind.

 

[Brovane]

Was it the radiation from the Van Allen belt that did him in? I would have thought it would have offed him much sooner.

That belt must be fake.

The belt is there. All the Apollo astronauts got exposed to radiation but it wasn't at any high levels because they flew through the belt at a high velocity and the Command Module did offer some protection from radiation. In order to really get a lethal dose of radiation from the Van Allen belt you would need to stop and spend several weeks/months sitting in the belt and getting exposed to radiation.

Neil died from issues with his heart, which isn't unusual for 80+ year old people. The Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 15 died when he was 61 from a hear attack. Some times people just die from whatever issue.

 

[Printer Bandit]

the soviet's only got the ability to track deep space objects after apollo 17.

apollo 17 was the final mission.

coincidence?

i think we did go to the moon (through the secret space program), but the landing coverage for the public was faked by stanley kubrick.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Who wasn't born yet when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

Or when Buffalo Springfield broke up.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

i think we did go to the moon (through the secret space program), but the landing coverage for the public was faked by stanley kubrick.

Congratulations on acquiring Downs.

 

[Brovane]

the soviet's only got the ability to track deep space objects after apollo 17.

apollo 17 was the final mission.

coincidence?

i think we did go to the moon (through the secret space program), but the landing coverage for the public was faked by stanley kubrick.

Who told you that the Soviets only got the abililyt to track deep space objects after Apollo 17? You do realize that the Soviets where sending un-manned probes to the moon before the Apollo missions?