Armstrong

Personal data:

Birthdate:  05 Aug 1930 Birthplace:  Wapakoneta / Ohio Marital status:  married Children:  three Selection date:  17 Sept 1962 Selection group:  X-15 1 / NASA-2 Job:  CDR Status:  Ret. 01 Aug 1970 Date of death:  25 Aug 2012 in Columbus, Ohio Age:  82 Reason of death:  Heart surgery

Spaceflights:

EVA′s:

Backup assignments:

Biographie

• Bachelor of science in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University, 1955; master of science in aerospace engineering from University of Southern California, 1970;
• Naval aviator from 1949 to 1952: he flew 78 combat missions over Korea;
  

  Dryden pilot Neil Armstrong is seen here next to the X-15 ship #1 (56-6670) after a research flight.

  Armstrong sitting in X-15.

  
  
• After flying 78 missions as a US Navy pilot in the Korean War he joined the NACA research agency which became NASA in 1958 and made four flights in the X-1B rocket plane in 1957-58. In Apr 1962, while a NASA civilian test pilot at the Flight Research Center at Edwards, Armstrong became a mesonaut, flying the X-15-3 rocketplane into the Earth's mesosphere on flights 3-3-7 and 3-4-8, reaching apogees of 55 and 63 km.
• He then joined the NASA astronaut office in Houston and after serving as backup commander for Gemini 5 flew in space in March 1966 as commander of the historic Gemini 8 mission which saw the first orbital docking and the first emergency orbital spin recovery and return to Earth.
• After two more backup slots on Gemini 11 and Apollo 8, his second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11. On 1969 July 19 the Apollo 11 crew of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins became the 7th, 8th and 9th humans to leave Earth's gravitational sphere of influence and enter the Moon′s; on July 20 Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to land on another world, as Armstrong brought LM-5 Eagle to a manual landing with only 20 seconds of fuel left. On July 21 Armstrong was the first human to walk on the lunar surface. In 1971 he left NASA and returned to Ohio where he taught aeronautics for several years.
• 1970 - 1971 Deputy Associate Administrator of Aeronautics, NASA Headquarters; since 1971 professor; later on he worked with bei CTA Inc., Lebanon, Ohio;
• in 1994 divorced from former Janet Shearon; remarried
• Of the 24 humans who have left Earth′s gravitational sphere of influence, 17 remain alive today.