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Astronaut Neil Armstrong Has Died
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.
And a great pilot. You will be missed.
http://xkcd.com/893/
RIP Neil.
http://xkcd.com/893/
May he rest in peace.
One of the greatest men of the last century - thank you for your contributions to mankind.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I'm too young to remember his accomplishments firsthand, but because of his accomplishments with the help of the entire infrastructure of the space race, I was able to grow up with the dream of living in a future in which I could visit the moon and mars... Now I feel that dream has died right along with him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
I urge you to go tell Buzz Aldrin your opinions.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And a loss for all mankind.
Godspeed, Mr. Armstrong.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
The boomers were teenagers or just graduating college when Armstrong walked on the moon. It was the generation before. There's a reason they call them "the greatest generation".
Mr. Armstrong, I watched you jumping about on the moon when I was nine years old. It was unbelievably cool! The future seemed to be one of boundless possibility.
Now I'm older, and more cynical, and the world hasn't really turned into the place I thought it would be at this point - but whenever I think about your trip to the moon I'm suddenly a wide-eyed nine-year-old that still believes anything can happen. It gives me hope that mankind really will solve it's most vexing problems, once it finally decides to do so.
Thank you for everything, sir. I hope your eternity is a pleasant one.
#DeleteChrome
At least NBC fixed the headline. It first read "Astronaut Neil Young, first man to walk on moon, dies at age 82."
Technically most of the astronauts and people involved with NASA/Apollo missions were NOT boomers.
Neil was born in '30, while the Boomer generation was from '46-'64.
Moon landing was in '69, so the Boomers would have been at most 23 yrs old at the time, so they would have just been finishing college and entering the workforce.
The Boomers were responsible though for the eventual budget cuts to NASA and education, but still reaped the benefits of it's hay day.
Everyone knows the real Neil Armstrong never left the moon, who do you think started building the first military moon base, and was later put in charge of it? In fact the entire Apollo program was designed to deliver astronauts to the moon, and then fake an Earth landing and use body double to replace them. Did you see how big the rocket needed to get all that crap to the moon was? And how small the lunar module was, no way did it have the power to escape to orbit and enough fuel to return to Earth. The Moon landings were real but the Earth landings are a HOAX!
A moment of silence for one of those who used math and fire to punch a hole in the sky.
There's no proof that you actually have a brain, either. Funny how you can sit there typing a message that can be broadcast instantly all around the world from your house, on a computer that is engineered to sub-nanometer precision, you can take medication that is engineered on a molecular level, and you can drive a car made of composites that were only dreamed of 50 years ago, yet you refuse to believe in the Apollo program.
So what, pioneer, voyager, viking and all the rest are fake, too? Curiosity is fake? To what end would the government continue to fake all these programs - considering the glee with which it cuts NASA funding wouldn't it be easier to just not to fake them in the first place?
I was little during the moon landing and thought it was pretty cool! It was only later when I came to appreciate the hazards and the guts to do the moon landing.
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.
If we do become a space faring people to future generations he will likely be the best remembered American. Name anyone that accomplished anything greater in the last 200+ years? There is only one person in all of human history that will be remembered as the first person to step foot on another world. Even to this day it's likely the greatest accomplishment of us as a species let alone as a nation.
Sigh. Not to minimize Armstrong's achievements — which took courage, brains, and skill — but he himself would probably wince at your hype. One of the greatest men in the 20th century? He led a historic space mission. That's a big deal, but it's not in the same class as wiping out smallpox, discovering relativity, defeating Nazi Germany, holding a nation together with a third of its workers unemployed, laying the foundations of the computer revolution...
There was a time when I was hopeful that humanity would form colonies on Moon or Mars, or perhaps even terraform there. It became extremely clear in the last couple of decades that infrastructure projects - the kind requiring massive investments and and resulting in long-term (only) benefits - are no longer easy to fund. This statement holds true for everything - space exploration, bridges, high speed railways, safer investments in nuclear energy, better fuel alternatives, improved roads - if it lacks immediate gratification and short-term economic and political upside, it is no longer generally funded.
This reality notwithstanding, we (as a species) are making some serious (but very slow) progress into space. There are concerted efforts by private organizations to build manned space vehicles, and helped by prizes like the Ansari X prize. Even government sponsored work - like Curiosity landing on Mars successfully - is stirring up public's imagination (although I'm afraid not enough to overcome the forces that prevent infrastructure investments across the board). Up and coming economies - especially China - are interested in making a name for themselves as innovators. This desire to establish a brand in the world stage is seemingly fueling China's space program (as it once fueled America and Soviet Russia's programs). India might yet join in and make real investments (but given India is India, there is no end to it's tendency to fail despite having all the talent and resources it needs to succeed).
So I think Armstrong might have died being disappointed at what we have achieved so far, and what we have not - but I suspect that he did not die thinking that we have given up, or that our future in space is bleak - I suspect that he'd have instead known that there is still hope, and that we are making progress - just that our progress isn't structured and US-centric as one might have imagined a few decades ago.
-- obligatory (but true) caveat: my comments my own, and don't reflect my employer or colleagues' positions.
Not really, because the major budget cuts did not happen till after Nam; when the Boomers started getting elected into Congress and the older generation retiring/dying off.
And besides, do we need further moon missions? We've been there lot's of times, we know what's there and have a crap ton of stuff on it's surface and in it's orbit. Until it becomes more feasible to put a permanent presence there it'll be a waste to keep sending people to hang out for a few days and collect rocks.
We'd probably get more benefit my concentrating NASA on more terrestrial endeavours.
Truly an American icon.
I grant you that, but as a non-American I'd like to add: Truly a human icon.
Never met Neil Armstrong. I suspect one day we will have a memorial park at tranquility base.
Hundreds and thousands of years from now, people who made the first moon landing possible will live on through the name of Mr. Armstrong, who will continue to appear in the history books. Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.
Sig
Go pour salt in your eyes.
Why?
Because being that fucking egregiously stupid should HURT.
He was non-military, for one.
He was a former Naval Aviator who flew combat missions in Korea. This experience probably made a significant contribution to his ability to remain focused and calm.
Retired is not "non-military".
Is of him and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon. My dad worked for Grumman and worked on the LEM.
A great man has left us. RIP.
I agree that he would probably have considered it hype as well, but I disagree that he wasn't in the same class. He inspired a generation of kids to become engineers, pilots, and astronauts. He rallied the entire globe around a peaceful cause. He was a leader. And he was the face of NASA, and the proud face of what America was capable of. And in 1969, in the middle of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, amidst huge problems around the country with race riots in Watts and Minneapolis and Chicago and Baltimore, here was this Great American Hero that we could all agree had made a remarkable achievement. We needed Neil Armstrong to be who he was.
John
The first true World Hero. At the center of a great collective effort they put the right man. And he never wanted to steal the credit from the team. You will be missed.
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.
stupid statement,
Armstrong wasn't born in Kenya.
...and whitey's on the moon.
Neil wasn't the quarterback, he was the football.
When the football has a bad spin or tumbles it does not correct the spin/rotation itself. Armstrong did so with a Gemini capsule that was in danger of going out of control. Similarly he had to land Apollo 11 manually when the computers were hazarding the ship. He was a pilot, not a passenger.
...then may his ashes be scattered among the moon's dust.
Were I American, I'd be proud to see my taxes pay for such a mission. Heck, I'd be proud to see my *Canadian* tax dollars pay for it (though, it might only get them 99.742% of the way there ;)
What a hero and what a sad day.
Other people went to the moon after Armstrong, not many, but several. It was really halted because it was/is so dangerous, expensive, and there weren't any yields from the moon that we can't get from orbit, which is vastly safer.
Good Luck Mr. Armstrong.....RIP
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I call BS on the idea that we have the tech/means for a moon base right now.
Cursorily is only like the 2nd non-terrestrial craft to use something other then solar for power. And a moon base would need a fuck ton more power then Curiosity could produce. (almost half it's total weight is devoted to the power system)
Plus you have to take into account Oxygen, Water, Food. We can recycle some, but it's far from enough to be self sufficient. They would still need regular supply runs from Earth, like the ISS.
How about cosmic radiation? The moon is after all outside the van allen belt. And even with shielding, the previous missions were timed to keep radiation exposure to a minimum.
The most ideal plans at current call for a moon base in 2014, with a four man team, rotating out due to the previous issues I noted and regular supply runs. (Near the pole so it'll get near constant sunlight for solar power)
One last breath for a man, one enduring legend for mankind
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
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.
I was fortunate to get a first hand viewing on TV of all the Apollo missions while bouncing on the knee of my father. The Apollo 11 astronauts were my first heroes and not long after I could read I enjoyed every book, magazine and encyclopedia article I found about them and their mission.
Armstrong is the model on how to be a hero; do something exemplary and treat it as just another day at the office. Embrace knowledge, challenge your mind and enjoy your job. And when it's over, it is over. Armstrong shied away from the public spotlight and certainly passed on what would have been many lucrative opportunities to cash-in on his fame. Instead, he remained pretty much the same person after the mission as before.
Sad day today, to know of the loss of a great person.
We absolutely have the means to do it. We lack the will. Its expensive as hell and the world runs on cost-effciency. A moon base is the first step in the ultimate insurance policy and people dont want to pay up.
Good-bye
You're thinking of Louis Armstrong.
You are getting people confused...Louis Armstrong was the guy who landed on the moon.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Truly an American icon.
I grant you that, but as a non-American I'd like to add: Truly a human icon.
Mod parent up. Gagarin and Armstrong regardless of their home country were, and maybe still are a great inspiration for millions of kids. Rest in peace.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
For very obvious reasons it cannot be staged. The biggest one being the Soviets.
The whole thing was a HUGE publicity stunt and a big dick waving contest between the US and the USSR. Considering how easy it was for the USSR to get spies to some key positions in the US, I don't doubt that they had a pretty good view on the whole moon program, too. A chance to expose that program, a program that the whole nation dedicated considerable resources to and that was watched by people all over the globe, as staged would have been an absolutely priceless PR victory for the USSR. If they only had had a HINT of a chance that this could have been debunked, they certainly would have jumped on that opportunity. Everyone all around the globe had their eyes on that event. You really think they would have let the opportunity slide to expose the US as fakes?
It seems to me that trying to stage it and keep it hushed up would have required more resources than simply doing it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't want to steer this discussion away from the topic, but this is exactly why no theist will ever be able to convince me about the "truths" of his religion. How am I supposed to believe that those word-of-mouth stories that are thousands of years old could be true when people believe in such ludicrous things as "the moon hoax", despite the fact that it was a much more recent event and there are tons of material evidence to support the fact that there was *no* super-competent con man who supposedly managed to trick thousands of engineers into thinking that they are not building a fake rocket and that they are not receiving fake telemetry not from the Moon? People *want* to believe in the irrational, they find something irrational everywhere they look. Human capacity for self-deception never ceases to amaze me.
Ezekiel 23:20
While I do understand that the US is in financial difficulty, it strikes me as important that the first man to walk on the Moon---on another celestial sphere---should be given a significant send off.
Frankly, I think the funeral should be at least on par with that expected for a _sitting_ president, and probably beyond. It may well end up being the most important funeral, or the most important man, in the history of the United States, if not the world.
Neil Armstrong deserves a state procession---an international procession. America and the World owe both he and his generation that much at least.
May the Maths Be with you!
He will still continue to give no fewer interviews than he did before
"Sad news, marking the end of a glorious and more optimistic era..."
I'm sure Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins will be happy to hear that the "era" ended with the death of one third of the Apollo 11 astronaut team, and that the era is defined in terms of one man among several who spent time on the Moon.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Bzz! Wrong. Voyager 1,2; Galileo; Viking 1,2; New Horizons, etc see wikipedia for a larger and more complete listing.
Somebody had to be second.
And who claimed it was "factually accurate"?
There are some parables I would call exactly that. Facts can be taught in story form. When you throw a witch into an oven, she will burn.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There were twelve.
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
The Admin and the Engineer
Here ya go! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/hold-state-funeral-neil-armstrong-symbol-american-dream-and-inspiration-generations/f2Nkgn6G
America, the Eagle has left.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I do not look forward to the day when there is no man left alive who has set foot on the moon.
I'm out of words - his passing touches me deeply.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
There have been over 50 other spacecraft that were sent up equipped with radioisotope thermoelectric generators before Curiosity, at least 10 of them being interplanetary probes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator#Space
You must be young. There are books from the 70s and 80s that address everything you're complaining about with viable solutions. Cosmic rays are a problem? Fine, live in buried habitats. That's been a feature of every moon base design I've ever read, except for The Millenial Project, which recommended a water shield instead (and included proposals for where to get the millions of kilograms of water necessary to shield an entire crater). Those designs even included ways of piping in filtered sunlight, so the residents wouldn't suffer from depression induced by light-deprivation.
Need power? Fine, land a nuclear fission reactor. Doesn't matter much which specific technology. We have it, and it doesn't even have to be engineered to survive operating in hard vacuum, because it can be buried too, in a pressurized chamber. You'd most likely use one of the designs used in naval submarines or aircraft carriers, since they're already designed to travel well.
Oxygen is easy. Even without any system whatsoever for regenerating oxygen from carbon dioxide, we know how to fly big tanks of compressed oxygen. And all the serious proposals included such regeneration systems, many of them incorporating plants.
Which leads to the next thing. Food. NASA has already done studies of what species of wheat would best grow in lunar conditions using minimally improved lunar material as soil. There's an entire corpus of material on the subject of how we might develop food self-sufficiency at a lunar base, and it's fairly obvious that it's possible. It's just a matter of GOING and doing the in situ research necessary to prove which ideas actually work. Until then, the solution of putting food on rockets and launching it is technology we have, and understand very very well. SpaceX just did precisely that, delivering to the International Space Station. It's so easy, it can be done on a budget.
Water is even easier. The human metabolism actually produces excess water as a byproduct, and treating water is something that's exceedingly well understood. It's not even remotely rocket science. It's science-based, but it doesn't take a scientist to run a wastewater treatment plant. It barely even takes a person, anymore. The ones in common use across the world are largely automated. Most of them don't even have very many moving parts. You'd be amazed what holding ponds in sunlight can do. Meanwhile, getting a system going with sufficient free water to start with is just as easy as solving food. You put a booster under it and you launch it. We know how to do this. Most serious proposals for putting massive amounts of water into space call for freezing it first, since it behaves better under launch conditions as a solid. Yes, people have actually considered that.
In short, we do in fact have ALL of the technology required to establish a long-term habitable lunar base. Becoming self-sufficient is then only a matter of additional research, which can only be done at an inhabited base. And we already know what research must be done. It's just a question of actually performing the experiments.
And doing it at all is solely a question of money, which is solely a question of will. There's more than enough free-floating capital doing absolutely nothing on Earth except generating commodity bubbles. The people who own it don't have the imagination to spend it.
I was 19 months. I don't remember it, but my parents sat me in front of the TV and I apparently watched it pretty intently. My dad took pictures of it right off our black and white TV. My parents encouraged my intellectual development, and I was in love with space ever since I was a kid. Due to their influence, the inspiration of Apollo program, some hard work and a fair bit of luck I'm lucky enough to have contributed in my own small way to several Mars missions. Neil Armstrong was and is one of my heroes and the influence his example has had on my life cannot be overstated.
The way to neutralize the effect of cosmic radiation is to bury the base in regolith or even tunnel under the surface. And oxygen is not a problem on the Moon. There is plenty of oxygen waiting to be liberated from from moon rocks.
I call BS on the idea that we have the tech/means for a moon base right now.
Cursorily is only like the 2nd non-terrestrial craft to use something other then solar for power.
Hah!
Pioneer 10 & 11, Voyager 1 & 2, Viking 1 & 2, Galileo, New Horizons and on and on and on...
You must be joking. Nuclear power usage in space craft is not new, it's not even new on Mars! We have two of those slowly cooling down right now
From: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx "Interventional cardiology and cardiovascular surgery is basically a scam based on a misunderstanding of the nature of heart disease. Searching for and treating obstructive plaque does not address the areas of the coronary vascular tree most likely to rupture and cause heart attacks. If there was never another CABG or angioplasty performed or stent placed, patients with heart disease would be better off. Doctors would be forced to educate our citizens that their heart disease risk is determined by what they place on their forks. Millions of lives would be dramatically extended. To abandon the theory of stretching and cutting out areas with plaque would shut down interventional cardiology, nearly all cardiovascular surgery, and many suppliers of the biotechnology. In many cases, interventional cardiology is the major income generator to hospitals. The ending of this ill-conceived, out-dated and ineffective technology would dramatically downsize hospitals in the United States and free up over $100 billion annually in medical care costs. Besides being ineffective, interventional cardiology places the responsibility in the hands of the doctor and not the patients. When patients finally realize they must take control of their heart problems with aggressive dietary modifications (and when needed medications for temporary periods) we will essentially solve the health crisis in America.
The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions.
Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive nutrition is the most life-saving intervention. And it is free."
When I heard about his treatment a couple weeks ago, I tried to figure out how to contact him, but to no avail. Neil Armstrong benefited from the best of 1960s technology, but sadly did not benefit from the best of 21st century medicine (aggressive nutritional intervention). Sad. We could have had him healthy and vibrant and as a witness to the better side of human kind for another decade or two. Instead some heart surgeons can afford to make a few more payments on luxury cars and big houses.
We just lost Martin Fleischmann (just as LENR aka "cold fusion" is resurging) probably from the same kind of widespread nutirional ignorance in the medical profession.
Some attempts by me to try to help with improving human health:
https://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sensemaking
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823
Something to keep in mind:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science
"Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors -- to a striking extent -- still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challengin
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
It's sad that he has passed away. I remember it being all over the news when they landed on the moon (though, being only four at the time I didn't stay up to watch it). I do remember in 1972 staying up late at night to watch the last Apollo missions beams live on TV. It was a great thrill (especially for someone as young as myself).
It is also sad that it has also brought you the lunatic fringe. I'm in several arguments with people who are busy slamming him and calling him a liar and a fraud etc and saying he never walked on the moon. In spite of them not being able to prove the things they are saying, they just refuse to acknowledge any evidence (including 3rd party evidence) that man has been to the moon. I guess you just can't argue with stupid.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)