Armstrong was one of America’s greatest heroes ever, and was a hero for the rest of humanity, as well. We will all miss him very much.
DerekH
A man who used his skill, knowledge and experience to help make a success of a mission that also depended on the skill, knowledge and experience of thousands of others – and then, instead of basking in the glory, he quietly went back to work. In the celebrity-obsessed 21st century, almost unbelievable.
Realy He was the Real Hero!!!!!!!!!!! I salute of His Contribution for the world.
Faizan sarwar
We have lost the masterpiece.
Brett
When you really think about it; he’s seen and experienced things that generation after generation will never get a chance to see or experience. Myself, my kids, my grand kids, and their kids; will probably never get the chance to see and feel what he felt. Maybe one day they’ll have regular trips to the moon, but it won’t be for a very long time. And when they finally do, it won’t be as ballsy as flying up there in the tupperware containers they did it in. It used to be that you could compare the computational power of the Apollo spacecraft to a digital watch, but even modern digital watches are more powerful.
An impressive man achieving impressive goals.
bob
Perhaps it should be added that the inspiring things that need doing now include real science – unmanned missions such as the Mars mission Curiosity – but not manned missions.
Sean. How can we realistically persuade NASA to send his ashes to the moon?
Can you help here?
Phil
Rohan,
Would you like to pay for that? Besides, he was a man who, perhaps, made his greatest contributions back here on Earth. And let’s not forget he has left behind many family members…back here on Earth.
Paul
43 years ago he had 50% chance of surviving, yesterday he died.
Actually, Armstrong said he had a 50% chance of successfully completing the mission. The chance of dying, he estimated at 10%. The other 40% chance of failure would involve problems where they would not have been able to land on the moon, but would have been able to survive (as happened to Apollo 13).
http://deleted Gary
I never Neil Armstrong. I deeply respect his inclination to privacy as much as his lunar accomplishment.
I’ve twice met “Buzz” Aldrin. On one occasion, we shared local radio air time.
I’ve unbounded respect for his ’69 innate computational superiority over the navigational computers on ’11.
Frankly, Aldrin’s ever since been just an attention whore.
Never in the same class as Mr. Armstrong.
Been up close, and seen it. Don’t bother telling me otherwise. You weren’t there.
http://miamihotels.in rip neil
Anyone else going to miss this man? I know I will. He is a true inspiration to many.
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Cosmic Variance
Random samplings from a universe of ideas.
About Sean Carroll
Sean Carroll is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests include theoretical aspects of cosmology, field theory, and gravitation. His most recent book is The Particle at the End of the Universe, about the Large Hadron Collider and the search for the Higgs boson.
Here are some of his favorite blog posts, home page, and email: carroll [at] cosmicvariance.com .
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