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Astronaut Neil Armstrong Has Died

Posted by timothy on from the he-had-a-very-good-run dept.

dsinc writes "Neil Armstrong, first man on the Moon, has died. NBC News broke the news, without giving other details. Neil was recovering from a heart-bypass surgery he had had a couple of weeks ago. Sad news, marking the end of a glorious and more optimistic era... RIP, Neil." Also at Reuters.

14 of 480 comments (clear)

  1. Oblig xkcd by myrdos2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://xkcd.com/893/

    RIP Neil.

  2. oblig xkcd by Lord+Lode · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://xkcd.com/893/

  3. Pilot, Engineer, Professor .. A Real Role Model by perpenso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A class act. And a great pilot. You will be missed.

    Navy pilot - combat veteran, test/research pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor. Of course he was most famous for being an astronaut, commander of the Apollo 11 mission and the first to walk on the moon.

    He inspired generations of scientists and engineers. Because of Armstrong and his fellow astronauts my friends and I in elementary school knew math and science were important and were highly motivated to pay attention. We had real heroes are role models.

  4. People who don't believe in heroes... by NemoinSpace · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Never met Neil Armstrong. I suspect one day we will have a memorial park at tranquility base.

  5. Re:A true steely-eyed missile man by houghi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footsteps on the moon.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  6. One of my first memories by spineboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was 4 and remember being rushed inside by my parents and grandparents. Many people were crowded around our TV, as not everyone had one yet.

    That blurry, slow, staticy picture would forever inspire me to love space and science.

    We need more of this for our future. Money better spent on building and science as opposed to destruction....

    --
    ..........FULL STOP.
    1. Re:One of my first memories by srobert · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was 6. My grandmother was watching with me. She told me that when she was my age, they hadn't yet flown the first aircraft. I think she was born in 1892. I extrapolated from this that by the time I grew up, there would be colonies on the moon, and I'd be living the life of George Jetson. I'm disappointed. But if it hadn't been for the Apollo program, I might not have become an engineer.

  7. Re:A class act by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer -- born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in the steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace, and propelled by compressible flow." - Neil Armstrong

  8. I gotta say it.... by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Good Luck, Mr. Gorsky!

    :)

    Good Luck Mr. Armstrong.....RIP

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  9. Re:Arguably the most important American ever by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Name anyone that accomplished anything greater in the last 200+ years?

    Jonas Salk, who eliminated polio. Louis Pasteur, who discovered germs. John Snow who proved that cholera spread via contaminated water and thus strengthened the case for public sanitation immeasurably... And just missing your 200 year deadline, Edward Jenner who introduced and championed vaccination.
     
    In just one field of human endeavor (medical science), these are people who caused change.
     
    As important as the moon landing is historically, Neil Armstrong was just a cog - the guy standing in the right place at the right time to be picked to pilot the mission.

  10. Re:Be as nasty as you want to the Baby Boomers... by dpilot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, and they gave birth to some of the worst brats ever - Us. (I'm a late boomer, so I'm part of that generation, but I try to do better.)

    Study the Bible a bit, and you'll see that the Hebrew nation survived every adversity thrown against it, except one. Prosperity - got them every time. Seems to me that has something to do with our current situation.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  11. Re:A class act by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Curious what his thoughts were on what has become of the agency.

    From the Wikipedia article:

    In an open public letter also signed by Apollo veterans Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan, he [=Armstrong] noted, "For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature".

    On November 18, 2010, at age eighty, Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he were asked.

  12. Re:A class act by CapOblivious2010 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Have you ever seen an actual Apollo spacecraft? Live and up close? They're amazingly rickety and primitive looking; I'd be afraid to take one out on the highway, never mind all the way to the moon.

    When I saw the Apollo 16 (in Huntsville AL), I thought of that scene in star wars where they rescue the princess from the death star and she sees the millennium falcon and says "You came here in that? You're braver than I thought!".

  13. Re:America, the Eagle has left. by dryeo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interesting read though I'd consider Gemini 8 spinning out of control to have been pretty close to killing astronauts, couple of years earlier too. Of course it was Neil who saved that mission as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_8#Emergency

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism