Farewell To An American Icon

Of all of the great things that were accomplished in the 20th century, perhaps none is more impressive or breathtaking than that moment when Neil Armstrong first walked onto the moon. Looking into the night time sky and seeing the moon in the vast distance, it's still hard to imagine that men have actually walked there. Although there have been a total of twelve Apollo astronauts to walk on the lunar surface, Mr. Armstrong was the first to do it (followed shortly thereafter by Apollo 11 companion, Buzz Aldrin).

How scary must it be to travel to a place over 200,000 miles away where no one has ever stepped foot? The Apollo astronauts must have had nerves of steel!

Believing that the planned landing spot was unsafe, Neil Armstrong had to improvise and alter the original plans slightly which meant that he would manually have to land the spacecraft. During the critical touchdown, most of us have heard the audio segment where Mission Control tells the Apollo 11 crew, "30 seconds". This was to inform them that they only had thirty seconds worth of fuel left for the landing! As if things weren't scary enough already, huh?

Of course, history was made when Armstrong responded back to Houston that The Eagle had indeed landed. Shortly after the landing, the crew received a phone call from President Nixon. Keep in mind that this was 1969 and Nixon was making a telephone call from Washington DC to the moon! Kind of makes cell phones seem just a little less impressive.

While preparing to liftoff from the moon and begin their journey back to earth, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that the ignition switch for the ascent engine was broken. They were able to use an ink pen to activate the launch sequence. And this was years before MacGyver came along!

After returning to earth, Neil Armstrong, a modest man, preferred to stay out of the limelight. He went on to teach at the University of Cincinnati. When a CBS reporter asked him about his experience on the moon, Armstrong simply replied, "It is an interesting place to be. I recommend it."

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When Neil Armstrong stepped foot onto moon and uttered his famous line, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind", it gave hope to humans on every corner of the earth. It was a shining example of how technically advanced we had become since the days when caveman first discovered fire and invented the wheel. To say we had progressed would surely be an understatement......

Sadly, Neil Armstrong left the earth for the final time yesterday at the age of 82. He will always be remembered as an American icon who boldly went where no man had went before........

kw