Neil Alden Armstrong
The First Man on the Moon
Neil was born on August 5th, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Wapakoneta was where he did most of his work. Armstrong's family was fairly close to him and some of his siblings became astronauts after Armstrong did.
Armstrong, when he first stepped onto the moon, gave a short speech. His words were, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". The speech was misheard by most people, thinking he said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". The video below shows his speech.
'That's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind' 1
Click Here to see the full moon landing
This video features other people from the Apollo 11 mission.
Neil Armstrong got tons of rewards for doing this. Some include: Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award, the Explorers Club Medal, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Harmon International Aviation Trophy, the Royal Geographic Society's Gold Medal, the Federation Aeronautique Internationale's Gold Space Medal, the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Award, the Robert J. Collier Trophy, the AIAA Astronautics Award, the Octave Chanute Award, and the John J. Montgomery Award.
After he graduated from college, he became a pilot. He could fly a whopping 200 different types of aircraft! He could even fly the most dangerous ones, including the X-15 which could go to a max speed of 4,000 mph (miles per hour)! He reports he fell in love with flying at an early age, and with that, he learned to fly a plane before he learned how to drive a car.
Gemini 8
Neil Armstrong, before the Apollo 11, he did actually go into space in the spacecraft called the Gemini 8. He was the main Command Pilot and he made the first REAL docking of two vehicles in space. However, the trip was stopped short.
Armstrong died in 2012. He was remembered by NASA and many space enthusiasts. He was an inspiration to many people even today.