60 Fun Facts About Neil Armstrong

Which two crewmates flew to the Moon with Armstrong on his second and last spaceflight?

Aldrin landed with him; Collins stayed in lunar orbit in the command module Columbia.

Near which Ohio town was Armstrong born and raised?

His father was a state auditor and the family lived in 16 towns in 14 years before settling back there in 1944.

How old was Armstrong when his father first took him to the Cleveland Air Races?

He had his first flight in a Ford Trimotor, the 'Tin Goose', at five or six.

What did Armstrong earn on his 16th birthday, before he had a driver's licence?

He soloed that August; he was also an Eagle Scout and carried a World Scout Badge to the Moon.

At which university did Armstrong study aeronautical engineering from 1947?

He turned down MIT after watching Purdue beat Ohio State in 1945; the Navy paid his tuition under the Holloway Plan.

Which aircraft did Armstrong fly in combat over Korea from the carrier USS Essex?

He flew 78 missions and once had six feet of wing torn off by a cable strung as a booby trap.

How many combat missions did Armstrong fly in the Korean War?

They totalled 121 hours in the air; he received the Air Medal and two gold stars.

What happened after Armstrong nursed his damaged Panther over friendly territory in September 1951?

He meant to eject over water but the wind blew his parachute back over land.

Which two student musicals did Armstrong write and co-direct as an undergraduate?

'Egelloc' is 'college' spelled backwards; he also played baritone in the marching band.

Whom did Armstrong marry in January 1956?

They divorced in 1994 after 38 years; their daughter Karen died of a brain tumour aged two in 1962.

At which air force base did Armstrong become a NACA test pilot in 1955?

He flew more than 200 different aircraft models in his career.

How many times did Armstrong fly the North American X-15 rocket plane?

He reached Mach 5.74 and over 207,000 feet, and once overshot the landing field by 40 miles at Mach 3.

What was Armstrong's top speed in the X-15?

That is 3,989 mph; he left the Flight Research Center with 2,400 flying hours.

With which legendary pilot did Armstrong get a T-33 stuck in a wet Nevada lake bed in April 1962?

Yeager, laughing, said he had known the lake was unsuitable; Armstrong remembered it differently.

Why was Armstrong ineligible for the original Mercury astronaut selection?

Selection was limited to military test pilots; Gemini in 1962 opened it to civilians.

How did Armstrong's late application to the second astronaut group get considered in 1962?

Dick Day, a flight simulator expert he knew from test-pilot days, saw it arrive a week past the June 1 deadline.

What did the press call the second group of NASA astronauts, selected in 1962?

Armstrong and Elliot See were the two civilians among them.

Which mission was Armstrong's first spaceflight?

He became NASA's first civilian astronaut in space, flying with David Scott in March 1966.

What milestone did Armstrong's March 1966 flight achieve before its emergency?

A stuck thruster then sent the docked craft rolling once per second; using re-entry fuel to stop it forced an early return.

How did flight director Gene Kranz sum up the 1966 stuck-thruster emergency?

No procedure existed for the docked spacecraft; Kranz called it the mission's most important lesson.

What was Armstrong's salary after the pay rise that followed his first spaceflight?

The $678 raise made him NASA's highest-paid astronaut.

In which South American country did Armstrong greet dignitaries in Guarani during a 1966 goodwill tour?

In Brazil he spoke about the aviation pioneer Santos-Dumont; the tour covered 11 countries in 24 days.

Where was Armstrong on the day of the Apollo 1 fire, 27 January 1967?

He and fellow astronauts spent the night drinking scotch and discussing what had happened.

What was the nickname of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle from which Armstrong ejected in May 1968?

Half a second later and his parachute would not have opened; his only injury was a bitten tongue.

Whom did Armstrong decline to swap in for Buzz Aldrin when Deke Slayton offered him command of the landing?

He thought Lovell, who had commanded Gemini 12, deserved his own command rather than the number-three seat.

What official reason was given in April 1969 for Armstrong, not Aldrin, going out first?

Chris Kraft later wrote that managers had already chosen Armstrong partly because he lacked a large ego.

On what date did Armstrong's Saturn V lift off from Kennedy Space Center?

Armstrong's heart rate peaked at 110; his wife and sons watched from a yacht on the Banana River.

What did the 1202 and 1201 alarms during the lunar descent turn out to mean?

Aldrin later said leaving the docking radar on had overloaded the computer; CAPCOM Charlie Duke said to carry on.

Per post-mission analysis, how much propellant burn time was left when the Eagle touched down?

The crew believed they had 40 seconds; Armstrong had taken manual control to avoid a boulder field.

What did Armstrong radio to confirm the landing?

Charlie Duke replied: 'You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again.'

Which foot did Armstrong set first on the lunar surface?

He stepped off the LM pad at 02:56 UTC on 21 July 1969, though the exact time is unclear.

How many people are estimated to have watched Armstrong's first step live?

That was around 20 percent of the world's population of 3.6 billion.

What did Armstrong eventually concede about the word 'a' in 'one small step for a man'?

A 2016 peer-reviewed study concluded he did say it; NASA's transcript keeps the 'a' in brackets.

How many images in the mission's photographic record show Armstrong, even partly?

He carried the single Hasselblad camera and did most of the photography, so Aldrin is the man in the famous shots.

How long did the first moonwalk last?

NASA kept it short because it was unsure how the suits would cope with the heat; Apollo 17's crew spent over 22 hours outside.

How did Armstrong and Aldrin start the ascent engine after breaking its ignition switch?

Their bulky suits had snapped the switch inside the cramped cabin.

Which ship recovered the crew after splashdown in the Pacific?

The crew then spent 18 days in quarantine before a 38-day 'Giant Leap' world tour.

How long were the returning astronauts quarantined?

It was to ensure they had not brought back any lunar infections.

Which supersonic aircraft did Armstrong become the first Westerner to see, in the USSR in 1970?

He also toured the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and called it 'a bit Victorian in nature'.

Where did Armstrong teach aerospace engineering from 1971 to 1979?

He chose it over his alma mater because its aerospace department was small; he was a tough grader.

What did Armstrong identify as the cause of the 1970 oxygen tank explosion that aborted a lunar landing?

He opposed the $40 million redesign of the whole tank, but lost the argument.

On which body investigating the Challenger disaster did Armstrong serve as vice chairman?

He kept its recommendations to nine, believing NASA would ignore a longer list.

Which was the first company Armstrong agreed to appear in advertising for, from 1979?

He thought they had a strong engineering division and were in financial trouble; he only ever endorsed American firms.

With which mountaineer did Armstrong travel to the North Pole in April 1985?

Steve Fossett and Hillary's son Peter were also on the trip, which Armstrong kept from the press.

Which company did Armstrong sue in 1994 for using 'one small step' on a Christmas ornament?

He had earlier refused MTV the use of his quote; the Hallmark settlement went to his old university.

Why did Armstrong stop signing autographs around 1993?

He had also stopped writing congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, feeding the myth that he was a recluse.

How did Armstrong lose the tip of a finger in 1978?

He packed the fingertip in ice and had it reattached in Louisville.

What did Armstrong's barber sell to a collector for $3,000 in 2005?

Armstrong threatened to sue unless the money went to charity, which it did.

Which Scottish town, seat of Clan Armstrong, made him its first freeman in 1972?

The Justice of the Peace read out an unrepealed 400-year-old law requiring him to hang any Armstrong found in the town.

What was the cause of Armstrong's death in August 2012?

His family later settled a malpractice suit with the hospital for $6 million.

What happened to Armstrong's remains?

The family declined a state funeral, knowing he would have objected.

Who played Armstrong in the 2018 film adaptation of his authorised biography First Man?

Damien Chazelle directed; the book was by James R. Hansen, the only biographer Armstrong agreed to work with.

Under which scheme did the US Navy pay Armstrong's tuition at Purdue?

He became a midshipman in 1949 and a naval aviator the following year.

Which fraternity did Armstrong pledge after returning to Purdue from the Navy?

His grades improved on his return, lifting his GPA to 4.8 out of 6.0.

Which was the first company board Armstrong joined?

He chaired its technical committee and flew the company's new and experimental jets.

In 1976 Armstrong joined an expensive expedition to the Cueva de los Tayos caves in which country?

Stanley Hall of Scotland organised the exploration, recruiting over a hundred people.

Which new TV channel wanted to use Armstrong's famous quote in its 1981 station identification?

He refused the use of his voice and likeness for the spot, which replaced the flag with the channel's logo.

Armstrong was backup commander of which mission just before being offered the first lunar landing?

Deke Slayton made the offer on December 23, 1968, as that mission orbited the Moon.

Which secondary school did Armstrong attend in Wapakoneta?

He took flying lessons at the Wapakoneta airfield while still a student.

Roughly how many people attended the returning astronauts' ticker-tape parades in New York and Chicago?

The August 13, 1969 celebrations ended with an official state dinner in Los Angeles that evening.