Neil Armstrong

person · earth

Born Wapakoneta, Ohio, 5 August 1930; died 25 August 2012. A naval aviator who flew 78 combat missions in Korea, then a research pilot at NACA and NASA, where he made seven flights in the X-15 rocket plane. He commanded Gemini 8 in March 1966, achieving the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit and then, when a stuck thruster sent the joined vehicles into a rapid roll, undocking and recovering control in the first in-flight emergency abort of a crewed American mission. As commander of Apollo 11 he took manual control of Eagle past a boulder field and, on 21 July 1969 at 02:56 UTC, became the first person to walk on the Moon. He left NASA in 1971 to teach aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati, served on the Apollo 13 Review Board, and was vice-chairman of the Rogers Commission investigating the Challenger accident.

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