Atomikrabbit said:

A superb pilot, engineer, American, man, and human being.

A fitting representative of the best of our species to first set foot on our moon.

Agreed. It seems like there were quite a few people from that era that made it seem like the American people could do anything we set our minds to and that incredible divisiveness still couldn’t take away our national identity. It really seems like that is gone now. How many think that this is really the case and why do you suppose that is (or isn’t)?

A superb pilot, engineer, American, man, and human being.

A fitting representative of the best of our species to first set foot on our moon.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF

He saved Gemini 8 and managed to bring the spacecraft back despite the extreme spinning caused by a stuck maneuvering jet.

During Apollo-11 he had to deal with a computer failure and having to take manual control of the LM at the last minute and maneuver to a suitable landing site, despite fuel reserves dropping to near zero.

Neil Armstrong made it look easy. He did it all without showing any sign of stress and came back to the LM all smiles. He was a great man after. No, he never took the spotlight, but he used his fame responsibly when necessary. He made public appearances rarely, but always did them to promote space flight and the future of NASA.

In the past couple of years had had been more vocal, speaking for the need for a better clear mission statement for NASA and continued funding for manned spaceflight.

The saddest thing is a man who helped build the space program had to die seeing it in a crumbling state and without knowing whether it had any future. I wish we had managed to get NASA back on track before his death, so at least he would have had that piece of mind.