Talk:Neil Armstrong

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Archive 1 (2003–May 2006)


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[edit] If I ever met Neil Armstrong

I often imagine that if I ever met Neil Armstrong in my life time and had a chance to sit down and talk with him and ask him questions. My mind filled with all of these questions would probably shut down and go blank in complete awe and reverie of him. Because in one hand I would know and simply acknowledge that he is not God nor any kind of a deity. But he is not a average and a ordinary man. I would imagine that he is probably highly intelligent and kind and private. My mind is filled with hero worship and awe and reverie for when I think of Neil Armstrong walking on that moon. How amazing it would be for any american anywhere to just sit down and to have a cup of coffee with a man that walked on the moon. Could anyone maintain a straight face amd treat him like some ordinary face in the crowd and have a friendly chit chat. I do not think I could. Summerblynk@Yahoo.com, Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, Ohio, 44109-4665, Thursday of July 20th of 2006 at 10:00 PM

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Armstrong on a flight from Washington, DC, to Chicago back in the 1980s. He, as I, was flying coach. As someone who has had high interest in the space program since I was a child, I knew him at first sight and there was no doubt. I was quite sure he knew I recognized him, as I am a very bad poker player, but I didn't say anything to him about who he was, just minor social patter that is common among seatmates. He was polite but very quiet, and I sensed that he really wanted to be left alone. I figured that he must meet thousands of people over the course of a year and that every inch of ground had been covered, conversationally, multiple times. I respected his evident wishes and let the thrill of meeting him be its own reward. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.101.1.130 (talk) 20:31, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I had the opportunity to meet him and shake his hand once. You are correct when you say that he is a private person, to the point that you better not ask him anything that has to do with going into space (which I think is kind of sad). But it was awsome just to meet him briefly and say hi. When he left, the group of us joked about not ever washing our right hands :-)... It was a very exiting time. Leon7 17:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
It's rather sad actually. Those guys were engineers, pilots - deeply technical types - and at the top of their game. Once they had their few days of glory, they were condemned to spend the rest of their lives talking about almost nothing else over and over again for the rest of their lives - and with little or no chance to carry on doing what they loved. You can see why he'd prefer not to talk about space with every random person he bumps into. I once did some work relating to the shuttle and space station simulators and spent time with one of the astronauts who did the Hubble repair spacewalks. He was being paid to talk to us about it - but you could see his eyes roll everytime we asked an 'obvious' question. Given the choice - I'd much prefer to have been the 10th man on the moon than the first. SteveBaker 21:52, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes references

I've noticed that the first note just says "Ibid, pages 49–50". Shouldn't there be a actual name of the reference? At least for the first entry. (ups)

[edit] One small step...

According to this news story, High-tech analysis may rewrite space history, the information on Armstrong's One small step speech in this article (some of which reads like Original research) needs to be revised. BlankVerse 07:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Armstrong never said it. It was no mistransmission. The facts are simple: 1) If he had indeed said "a" in that line, there would have been a quick run-on of words jumbled together, i.e. "one small stepforaman". This is similar to the more familiar "knowwhatImean" from Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell character. 2) If there was a mistransmission, then why this particular word? Why is it there's no mistransmission of any other word in his radio transmissions between the Lunar Lander and Houston? All in all, the word "a" was a later inclusion after the fact, and was meant to demean Armstrong's line and make the whole line, and possibly the whole mission, sound less important than it really was. And further, the line intruducing "one small step..." had the phrase "this is the line we believe he said:" Who is "we"? Since it was not a direct quote from anyone but rather someone's personal opinion about what he thinks Armstrong said it was edited from the main article. Carajou 16:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How Was Video Camera Set Up To Record Armstrong's First Step?

We all are familiar with the famous video of Armstrong's first steps on the Moon. My question is: since the video camera records Armstrong's first steps onto the surface of the Moon, then how was the video camera set up outside the spacecraft to record this event in the first place? Perhaps this article could explain how this was accomplished.

This page explains it. Basically, the camera was mounted to another part of the lander.


[edit] For a man

The "'for a man' masked by static" claim has not yet been independently verified. In fact, some linguists have doubt about it: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003630.html --Kjoonlee 04:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. There is now growing confusion on the 'a' claim. TruthCrusader 09:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The article now includes a link to Peter Shann Ford's paper. It uses waveforms (not spectrograms!) in its analysis.
Language Log has been covering this recently, if anyone's interested. --Kjoonlee 03:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
And now a phonetician has spoken up and pointed out some inaccuracies. Language Log: First Korean on the moon! --Kjoonlee 15:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reverting change to this talk page

i reverted to a previous version to undo this edit.. the edit summary said it changed the fac tag to facfailed - which is rightly did; but it also removed discussions and other useful banners (including two WikiProject banners) for no apparent reason.. i think i've added in all the changes afterwards correctly. Mlm42 10:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. I must have accidentally edited and then saved an old version of the talk page. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] GA comments

This is certainly a good article. I have seen the comments for FA failure and although some objected that it draws largely on his authorised biography, this is to be expected. As long as he is still alive, for the sake of WP:BLP, this would be the best source to use. The red wikilinks should be removed and the first footnote should give the full reference to the book (the rest being Ibid). I am not certain if this article is still being "watched" over so if no one makes the corrections, I will do it myself before promoting it. There are two citation needed tags which will need to be corrected before going on to FA. RelHistBuff 14:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

The corrections were made and promoted to GA today. RelHistBuff 08:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good luck, Mr. Gorsky

Should we note the false, yet well-known and widespread unpleasant urban legend? --Kizor 00:32, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Neil Armstrong

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 18:40, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] coco milk??

when i press the link it came up with coco milk. What is happening? 87.112.32.174 18:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism, now reverted. --Skizzik 18:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many flights was Armstrong on?

?????? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.17.27.157 (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2007 (UTC).

To quote the Wikipedia article, Neil Armstrong — "Armstrong's first spaceflight was Gemini 8 in 1966[…]. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on 20 July 1969." Evil Monkey - Hello 20:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neil Armstrong article has been vandalized.

The Wikipedia article on Neil Armstrong has been vandalized by someone who thought it would be funny to throw the words "retarded poopsicle" and other similar malicious edits into an otherwise accurate article. Can someone fix this? Thanks! Ken

[edit] Armstrong's Nationality

The article says "German". He's certainly of German descent, on one side, but surely he's American if he was born in Ohio? Spitfire1 15:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

He's a native-born American citizen. 'German' only refers to his heritage (and only part of it at that).

Sean7phil 23:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] is neil armstrong a moslem?

can anyone tell me is neil armstrong became a moslem after the apollo 11 mission..is there any literatures that can prove it?oqie-indonesia —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.160.248.114 (talk) 07:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC). How does it matter? I am sure he is [a] spritual fair man - way beyond any "football team" like religion can make you.

Popular urban legend; no truth to it. It actually mentions this in the article... Shimgray | talk | 21:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Its a Muslim Urban legend. Apparently the story is he and Buzz heard Mosque prayer bells ringing on the moon lol. Total Nonsense. Dman727 23:32, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Urban legend or not it is VERY widely believed in the Muslim world. A Malaysian friend of mine as recently as last week told me that Neil Armstrong became a Muslim after walking on the moon. I think it is a misconception that is widespread enough to be worth mentioning and refuting in the article. Ryan Albrey (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Doh, Muslims don't have prayer bells, DMan... :/ But yes, it's an urban legend. 172.212.43.56 (talk) 09:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Please add it into the article because urban legends i fear might become historical fact if enough people believe its true i would but my spelling is, eh not so Godly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.212.59.121 (talk) 22:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UFO sighting?

Did Armstrong see two UFOs on the moon, as List of UFO sightings#UFO Sightings says? Bubba73 (talk), 15:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

My guess is what is being referenced there is an incident that took place on the third day of the flight. On pages 430 to 432 of my copy of First Man it talks about the sighting. On the evening of the third day Aldrin saw an object that moved relative to the stars. They radioed mission control who told them the S-IVB was 6000 miles away, that being their first guess as the cause. Armstrong is described as being confident what they saw was one of the SLA panels (Image:As7-3-1545.jpg has a nice shot of them still attached on Apollo 7. On Saturn V flights, they disattached after it was decided that they could pose a hazard to getting the LM out during later flights). The object is also mentioned in section 6.40 of the mission report (scroll down from here). Evil Monkey - Hello 04:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I've heard the description of them possibly seeing the S-IVB or its panels before. So the statement in the other article about Armstrong seeing two UFOs from the Moon may be a perversion of that, and not be accurate. Bubba73 (talk), 04:50, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] love it

i ♥ this site ! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.130.182.70 (talk) 19:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Second Sentence

Surely the second sentence would read better as follows: "Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the Moon or any other extraterrestrial world." Comments? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ukexpat (talk • contribs) 17:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

Good idea. Since some of the edit to this sentence came from me, I took the liberty of changing it as you suggested... with a minor modification. Leon7 03:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested semi-protection

from the continuous stream of vandals. Unfortunately it was declined. Im taking this off my watch list and let someone else deal with it. Dman727 01:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moon Landing Hoax Theory

There is no limit to where people's ridiculous suspicions will take them if they are truely committed to ideas at the expense of reality.

Conspiracy theories like these are the mental cancer of our times.

Sean7phil 23:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page should be protected

The page is filled with vandalism. It should be fixed and locked for a bit. Mcbainpc 23:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

i requested semiprotection, and it's been granted. hopefully we now won't have to waste time every single day reverting nonsense. Anastrophe 19:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Colour Image of Landing

They didnt have a colour camera on that flight, the caption of the photo reads "Armstrong works at the lunar module in one of the few photos showing him during the EVA." A black and white photo either had colour added to it or its a photo of another astronaut. The source for the photo is no longer working —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.90.215 (talk • contribs)

According to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
The film used on Apollo-11 was the same type carried on the other flights - a Kodak special thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated 70 mm film - which permitted 160 pictures in color or 200 on black/white in each loading.[1]
There is also this NASA document which lists the film used on Apollo 11. All the flights carried both color and black & white film for the Hasselblads. As to the dead link it appears NASA have changed their image links. Evil Monkey - Hello 19:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autographs?

The article states that his policy is to not sign autographs, though a quote by an observer seems to say that he will if he's under enough pressure. (Or is the quote what the observer hears from the audience, not what he observers? That could use some clarification.) Also, he looks like he's signing something in that picture with Barney the presidential dog. I suppose he could just be making notes for his speech or something... -Mysterius 11:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I hate when people copyedit and accidentally change what the sentence was saying. I've fixed it so it now correctly reads that the "shove something close enough" quote is what the author overheard people saying. As for the White House photo, the caption from the White House states that he was responding to "questions for "Ask the White House"". Evil Monkey - Hello 23:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Small step..." once more

I just thought that the famous first-step sentence should not start out so boldly by saying that

a) [I quote from the entry]

  "It has long been assumed that Armstrong had mistakenly omitted the word "a" from his famous remark."

Assumed by whom? Aside from that dubious statement (itself an assumption) it seems wrong to start right off the bat into the subject with an implied lapse in rhetorical skills of the speaker (Armstrong) or hearers.

b) The famous line _without_ the "a" is listed in this article simply as being a tautology; it can be read so, but can be construed--and has been heard originally and since read by who knows how many people--as being a short hand of saying, indeed, the phrase _with_ the "a". That is, "a small step for the [the _literal_ group of beings known as] mankind, on contrast to the metaphor "a great leap forward...." What seems like detailed parsing takes more time to write than it is to think it, and is fairly simple, and requires far less reasoning about rhetoric than the a reasoned-out logical deduction that the phrase may be tautological.

I agree that the excited search for the "a", and Armstrong's apparently (as I see it) resigned acquiescence, is pursued so diligently by those who insist upon the "tautology" from the get-go. It seems that this entry does so too, to its detriment.

For what it's worth, NASA posts as _its_ transcription an affirmation by Aldrin, taken from his debriefing, of the phrase without the "a":

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo-11/apollo11transcripts.htm#from%20the

[NB: the above strange looking url is correct]


Shlishke (talk) 07:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1) Controllers confused by the name "Eagle"? 2) Spurious timing

a) This is serious. What on earth does

"The first words Armstrong intentionally spoke were...."The Eagle has landed,"
which briefly confused the flight controllers in Houston
**because he had chosen this name himself.**

Huh? The mission craft was Eagle from the get-go. Am I missing something here?

BTW, why the "intentional" in the above citation?

b) The degree of accuracy in the time of the touchdown and the spoken words is misleading, as good as not wrong, and frankly unnecessary at all (that is, to the second), or if givem, at least with a proviso.

For example, in _The First Lunar Landing Corrected Transcript and Commentary Copyright © 1995 by Eric M. Jones_ [2] the time of the landing, from the direct log, as given by CAPCOM, as "...an unofficial time for that touchdown of a [sic] 102 hours 45 minutes 42 seconds. [time into mission]." Another NASA source gives it as UT 20:17:40 (04:17:40 p.m. EDT [3]

The entire issue is summed up by Jones:

"NASA tells the press that the first step came at 109:24:20. The Apollo 11 Mission report gives "initial contact" at 109:24:15. Clearly, over longer intervals, the transcript times are only suggestive. Discontinuous jumps like the one between 109:24:13 and 109:24:48 occur at notable mission events and elsewhere, probably at the end of tapes or tape segments used by individual transcribers.


The same problem in the Wiki entry applies of course to the other famous first, the words the "one small step." In [4] the time is 109:24:48. In the Wiki article it is 2:56. My point in all of this is the Wiki piece should not be so "authoritative."

c) For the record--which an encyclopedia ultimately is--and certainly for Aldrin, the first words ever spoken by a human being on the surface of the moon were "Eagle [Aldrin]: Contact light. Okay, engine stop." [5] Shlishke (talk) 03:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

a) The way it is worded is not very good. What it means is that the call-sign "Tranquility Base" caused the confusion, not "Eagle". Throughout the rest of the time on the lunar surface, Mission Control would use the former call-sign. I've hopefully fixed it to make it less confusing. The word "intentionally" will be there because of your point c). It is there is make it clear that "the eagle has landed" were the first words spoken that were not just "conversation" between Armstrong and Aldrin regarding the landing ("engine stop", "ACA out of Detent" etc). Also with respect to c), you could argue that "Aldrin: Contact Light." were the first words spoken on the moon, since part of the craft was touching the lunar surface at this point.
As for point b), I agree that there is a lot of discrepancy out there over times. Probably needs a site-wide cleanup. Evil Monkey - Hello 08:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paren added about "First" words [need help], first ref Hansen not specified

Hi,

a)

I've futzed around for an hour now trying to get a cite format, and need your help. Can you fix the format for the sentence I added that ends [....acknowledged by controllers." Here I tried putting in the messed up cite

Jones, Eric M. (2005-04-30). The First Lunar Landing, 1995 (revised 24 April 2007), time 105:42:43. National Aeronautics & Space Administration. Retrieved on 2007-11-29.

b) The first reference, #2, (and hence all subsequent ones) is inadequate, with no data but the name Hansen.

I presume the work referenced is First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, James R. Hansen, published in 2005 by Simon & Schuster. An internal Wiki cross ref to this very book can be made.

[edit] Please ignore point B above, revision to point B: sentence "gone"; insert not-inserted

My beautiful succinct parenthetical sentence re first words got not-saved by me. But the bleg still stands, while the cite plaintively awaits it's gossamer, comforting progenitor. [/sigh]

Re my bitch about the Hansen first citation. The data's in reference section. Sorry for wasting your brain space, and that I reached so quickly for the holster. I'm not used to that bibliographic format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shlishke (talk • contribs) 02:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Buzz Aldrin article, and a note on "ego" quote

Can someone take a look at the Aldrin article? I just did a MAJOR re-arrange and copy edit, some additions, and many queries, some of which are critical, I think. I can't seem to get the fact that I did those things up on the Aldrin discussion board for people to look at.

BTW, here in Armstrong, the mention of Aldrin's not going first on the moon being perhaps because of his "ego," seems to border Wiki's living-person standards, because as far as I read the article, it's not clear if that comment per se is referenced.

v ciao, Shlishke 00:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

The article suggest that Aldrin was not allowed to become the first person to land on the moon because of his ego. I have a problem with the following line:
"...in some part because NASA management saw Armstrong as a person who did not have a large ego."
The above line should be verified. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 12:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citation Needed on 4.2 Apollo program

The event on the 1st paragraph is described in the book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, written by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. However it is a novel based on Lovell's experiences and that doesn't mean that everything described there is a fact. At least that's what I think. Maybe the person who wrote this has some more information on where they got it and can provide it in the article! What's your opinion on this? -- DimTsi (talk) 20:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something isn't right

Navy Service

--"[His first wife] died of pneumonia, related to her weakened health, on January 28, 1962"


Gemini Program

-Gemini 11

--"Following the [September 12, 1966] flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Armstrong and his wife to take part in a 24-day goodwill tour of South America."


[edit] Master of science degree

When Armstong earned his master? 1962 or 1970? Maybe he 1970 received the "licence to teach" from the university of south california? Because his teaching began 1971.

[edit] Life After Apollo

-Personal Life

--"He met his second wife, Carol Held Knight, in 1992 at a golf tournament."


Johnson wanted him to bring his wife that was dead for 4 years on the trip?!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.142.34.42 (talk) 20:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

no, the person who died was their daughter. the 'she's are not as clear as they could be. i'll revise. Anastrophe (talk) 22:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

BY DAVID NORIEGA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.0.39.12 (talk) 18:32, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Space Sickness contradictions

The article says under the section Apollo 11 section, Voyage to the Moon:

[...] and the Apollo CSM was relatively roomy compared to the confinement of the Gemini capsule. This inability to move around was suspected to be the cause of space sickness that had hit members of previous crews, but none of the Apollo 11 crew suffered from it.

That implies that space sickness was aggravated by being in small cramped spaces. But reading the Space Adaptation Syndrome article it states almost the complete opposite:

it seems to be aggravated by being able to freely move around, and so is more common in larger spacecraft. Around 60% of all Space Shuttle astronauts currently experience it on their first flight; the first case is now suspected to be Gherman Titov, in August, 1961 onboard Vostok 2, who reported dizziness and nausea. However, the first significant cases were in early Apollo flights; Frank Borman on Apollo 8 and Rusty Schweickart on Apollo 9. Both experienced identifiable and reasonably severe symptoms — in the latter case causing the mission plan to be modified.

So, is it a contradiction? I think so, it should be corrected. However, if the Voyage to the Moon section under Neil Armstrong's article is saying that the inability to move around was first thought to cause motion sickness, that should be noted.

- Thanks, Cody-7 (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Armstrong's words on the moon are a CONTRADICTION not a TAUTOLOGY

A tautology would be saying the same thing twice, but Armstrong says that man/mankind has simultaneously made a small step and a large leap. Can't change this, page is locked.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.160.229.98 (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed the same thing and yes, you are right. Also can't do anything about it.. (Anih (talk) 00:47, 12 April 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Buzz Aldrin on the computer errors

I just watched "In the Shadow of the Moon" and Aldrin describes the radar that caused the computer errors as the "rendezvous radar". His nickname was "Dr. Rendezvous" because of his habit of talking about rendezvous incessantly. He takes responsibility for turning it on and leaving it on. Tipidweller (talk) 00:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)tipidweller