Jacob : My report on Neil Armstrong: Jacob

Tuesday 25 September 2012

My report on Neil Armstrong: Jacob

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. He made everybody believe that anyone could go to the moon.

Neil Armstrong was born on the 5th of August 1930 Wapakoneta, Ohio. His parents were Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louis Engel. His father worked as an auditor for the Ohio state government. On July 20, 1936, he experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio, when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor.

His father's last move was to Wapakoneta (Auglaize County) in 1944, where Neil attended Blume High School. He went to Purdue University, the University of Southern California. Neil began taking flying lessons at the county airport, and was just 15 when he earned his flight certificate, before he had a driver's license. He was active in the Boy Scouts and he eventually earned the rank of Eagle Scout. As an adult, he was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award. In 1947, Armstrong began studying aerospace engineering at Purdue University, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta and Kappa Kappa Psi. He was only the second person in his family to attend college, and was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Neil’s call-up from the Navy arrived on January 26, 1949, requiring him to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training. This lasted almost 18 months, during which he qualified for carrier landing aboard the USS Cabot and USS Wright. On August 16, 1950, two weeks after his 20th birthday, Armstrong was informed by letter he was a fully qualified Naval Aviator. His first assignment was to Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 7 at NAS San Diego (now known as NAS North Island). Two months later he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51), an all-jet squadron, and made his first flight in a jet, an F9F-2B Panther. Armstrong first saw action in the Korean War on August 29, 1951, as an escort for a photo reconnaissance plane over Songjin. On September 3, 1951, Armstrong flew armed reconnaissance over the primary transportation and storage facilities south of the village of Majon-ni, west of Wonsan.

He married Carol held Knight. He also married Janet Elizabeth Shearon on January 28, 1956, at the Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. They had three children, Eric, Mark and Karen Armstrong. In June 1961, daughter Karen was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the middle part of her brain stem; X-ray treatment slowed its growth, but her health deteriorated to the point where she could no longer walk or talk. Karen died of pneumonia, related to her weakened health, on January 28, 1962.

There was no defining moment in Armstrong's decision to become an astronaut. In 1958, he was selected for the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. In November 1960, Armstrong was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space plane, and on March 15, 1962, he was named as one of six pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane when it got off the design board. A March 1969 meeting between Slayton, George Low, Bob Gilruth, and Chris Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in some part because NASA management saw Armstrong as a person who did not have a large ego. On July 16, 1969, Armstrong received a crescent moon carved out of Styrofoam from the pad leader, Guenter Wendt, who described it as a key to the Moon. In return, Armstrong gave Wendt a ticket for a "space taxi" "good between two planets". The mission took 8 days, 14 hours, 12 mins and 30 secs. When he landed on the moon he said the eagle has landed. When he walked on the moon he said one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.

Neil died August 25, 2012 (aged 82) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. and was most famous for the words that he said on the moon.