Neil Armstrong, American Astronaut

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing mission in his space suit, with his helmet on the table in front of him. Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the US Navy and served in the Korean War. A participant in the US Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott. His second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing, in July 1969. On this mission, he and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module. Along with Collins and Aldrin, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. He died in 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery

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