Posted on 05/24/2012 11:40:28 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
As the first person to walk on the moon, he is a man whose name will be remembered for generations to come. But one of the other well-known things about Neil Armstrong is that he hardly ever gives interviews.
It was therefore something of a coup for Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, to secure almost an hour of Armstrong’s time to discuss the astronaut’s trip to the moon.
In the illuminating conversation posted online on the CPA Australia website, Armstrong revealed how he thought his mission, Apollo 11, only had a 50% chance of landing safely on the moon’s surface and said it was “sad” that the current US government’s ambitions for Nasa were so reduced compared with the achievements of the 1960s.
“Nasa has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve,” said Armstrong. “It’s sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.”
As a child, Armstrong said he had “become fascinated with the world of flight...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Contrast the inspiration to do great things given to millions of young kids by the NASA astronauts with Obama’s “Julia” who looks to the government to do everything for her.
Wapak is about 40 miles from me, and every kid in our grade school goes to see the Armstrong Museum on a school field trip in the 5th or 6th Grade. I think I still have the LEM floaty pen I bought there. :)
Is there any mention of whether Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, told Neil that his chat was for publication?
I once years ago had a funny exchange with another Freeper that started off wondering what might've been said if Armstrong had stepped on a carelessly (somehow) discarded rake on the Lunar surface which had in turn smacked him in the helmet. The first words spoken from another world might've been a stream of blue language. :-)
When I look out into your eyes out there,
When I look out into your faces,
You know what I see?
I see a little bit of Elvis
In each and every one of you out there.
Lemme tell ya...
Weeeeeeeeeellllllll...
Elvis is everywhere
Elvis is everything
Elvis is everybody
Elvis is still the king
Man o man
What I want you to see
Is that the big E’s
Inside of you and me
Mr. Armstrong is a great guy. I had the privilege of being his body-guard at the grand opening of Cincinnati’s Riverbend Ampitheatre on July 4, 1984. Ella Fitzgerald and the Cincinnati Pops were the attraction and Mr. Armstrong read the Pledge of Allegiance during the finale while the Pops played the 1812 Overture.
He still lives in here in Cincinnati. I know exactly where, but I can’t tell you.
That’s why he didn’t give interviews. He didn’t want to keep lying about having been to the moon.
But whether or not the private sector can save manned flight remains to be seen. There has to be a profit made doing it, and it can't wait a generation or two for the technology to mature. Investors want ROI within a human-scale timeline. The jury is still out, IMHO.
During an interview,likely one of hundreds after they'd returned from the moon, he was asked what he was thinking, feeling.. as he sat there on the launch pad, awaiting liftoff.
The reporter was obviously hoping for something profound..instead, Armstrong replied:
"I realized I was sitting there atop this incredible piece of machinery, consisting of millions of parts, EACH ONE MADE BY THE LOW BIDDER."
Yes it advanced technology.
But it lived up to what the US is all about. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It instilled Pride in America. It showed the world that we were the best.
And it proved to the USSR that we were better than them. They never put a man on the Moon. They didn't have the ability. If they did don't you think they would have? Too show the world that they were just as good as the US?
They gave up on it. Just as they gave up when Reagan started Star Wars.
Yeah they put that trash can in space they call Soyuz. Yeah I want to spend 6 months in that shitehole.
Ed
Obama's vision: Shoot the moon to the American people.
orale!!!! (a little Spanish lingo)
As opposed to what 99.9999% of us would say....
Holy shit, I'm on the moon!
Well, he did do better on that than Obama did on his “swearing-in” deal. Obama took the ball and ran with it and loused up the thing royally. Of course, the media laughed it off. If it had been “Bush”, they’d have had a cow.
Neil Armstrong is, no doubt, a hero. He was chosen while a civilian. The gov’t at the time didn’t want the world, ( The Russians ), to think that it was a ‘military’ operation.
In my mind, though, Captain Alan Shepard was the man. Neil Armstrong’s heart-rate during his moon-landing got up to 160 beats per minute. Captain Alan Shepard’s heart-rate during his moon-anding never got above 80 beats per minute.
Is that ‘cool’ or not?
“anding” = “landing”
LLS
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