{"id":1343,"date":"2013-10-26T03:38:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-26T03:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heikegani.com\/?p=1343"},"modified":"2015-11-16T11:30:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T11:30:30","slug":"neil-armstrong-first-man-on-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heikegani.com\/index.php\/neil-armstrong-first-man-on-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Armstrong: First Man on the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a monumental first. Greater than Columbus<\/a><\/strong>. Greater than any previous voyage of discovery. Played out live on TV across the globe, Neil Armstrong<\/a><\/strong> instantly became the most famous man on the planet.<\/p>\n

\"Neil<\/a>
Neil Armstrong. The first man to set foot on the Moon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A humble aeronautical engineer, Armstrong was not prepared for worldwide celebrity. He was however, the most prepared, capable and competent man to command the most daring mission the human race had ever undertaken.<\/p>\n

Interviews with Armstrong reveal some of his close calls while test piloting the hypersonic X-15<\/a><\/strong>, a technological wonder which only the very best were chosen to fly. This put him into an upper echelon revered by other pilots.<\/p>\n

In 1962 the loss of his two year old daughter to a tumour was a hugely traumatic event which he was unable to talk about. He dealt with it by throwing himself back into work on the demanding x-15 programme. By setting records for the longest and highest flights ever achieved he touched the edge of space. By the end of the decade he would go so much further.<\/p>\n

It was an exciting and perilous time for the nascent NASA<\/a><\/strong> space programme. Great technical advancements went hand in hand with exploding rockets and regulars failures to launch. The whole endeavour involved untested technologies and procedures and the astronauts were required to adapt to constantly changing situations under pressure. On the first orbital docking mission, a rehearsal for how the command module and the moon-lander would separate and reconnect during the actual mission, both spacecraft became unstable when they docked.<\/p>\n

\"Apollo<\/a>
Armstrong’s view of Earth from Apollo 11.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Out of communication with mission control they had to act upon their own initiative and they undocked the two craft. However, it turned out that it was the Gemini<\/a><\/strong> capsule they were in which was the problem and after undocking they went into a spin at a rate of around a revolution per second. As mission control regained contact there was very strong concern that the two astronauts onboard would black out and it would be all over. Unflappable as ever, Armstrong managed to reach up above his head during this high speed roll, operate all of the correct switches in precisely the right order and slowly regain control of the capsule. \u201cHe found the solution and activated the solution,” says co-pilot Dave Scott, “it was my lucky day to have been flying with Mr. Neil Armstrong”. Upon landing, having saved the crew, and possibly the whole space programme, Armstrong drove his car home, chatted briefly to his wife in the kitchen and life went on as normal.<\/p>\n