Neil Armstrong Dead at 82

It was exiting to live in a time where we walked the earth with such pioneers. Not many of them are left, and we are not replacing them. We haven’t been back since Apollo was cancelled in the early 70s. I think the next time man sets foot on the moon, it will be a commercial venture, rather than a government one.

7 thoughts on “Neil Armstrong Dead at 82”

  1. He was a real class act who was very conscious and protective of his legacy, which he never compromised or cheapened. A great man.

  2. Even though Apollo 17, the last manned mission to the lunar surface, was in December 1972 the fate of the Apollo program was decided many years earlier.

    Technically the Apollo program was cancelled by Congress back in 1967 due to the combined budgetary pressures of the Vietnam War and the Great Society program. That was when it was decided that there would be no more missions past 17.

    Of all the plans NASA had in 1967 for manned projects beyond the Apollo missions, only the Space Shuttle program survived, and even that barely.

    So many compromises were made in the Shuttle design to fit the new cramped NASA budgets that the hopes for the Shuttle project to reduce the costs of space flight were doomed before the first Shuttle flew. But NASA was so committed to Shuttle that it absorbed the lions share of NASA resources until the unsafe vehicle was finally cancelled by Bush after 30 years of service.

    Today under the new Obama plan for NASA, the newly completed International Space Station is about to step into the role of the Shuttle. As another project that NASA is too committed to and which will keep NASA trapped in low-Earth orbit for the next 30 years. The Bush plan was to cancel ISS in 2016 after fulfilling international obligations, thereby freeing up resources for missions beyond LEO. Obama has committed to keep ISS flying beyond 2023!

  3. Blue skies, and tailwinds, Neil. Thank you for that one small step, and my apologies that we have not made it a billion more.

    As far as the next mission being commercial, we can only hope and pray.

  4. I remember the walk, as I watched it with my father. I was 12. I don’t remember the landing, but I remember the walk. Initially the camera deployed and everything was upside down, so what was broadcast was Neil Armstrong coming up the TV screen to get to the surface. Engineers quickly adjusted the TV view which was black and white if I recall exactly.

    Brave man to walk out there. All that stuff done with the work going to the lowest bidder. Not sure that’s the best way to do things.

    1. It was the most exciting time of my youth. I was glued to the TV when he called out, “The Eagle has landed!”

      And now, Lord willing, the “Eagle” is winging his way back to the Heavens.

      Godspeed, Neil Armstrong!

  5. Ohhhhhh, Armstrong!! NBC News said Neil Young!! Kinds wondered how that fact-checking in the CriminalLiberalMedia was working.

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