Neil Armstrong, He ran out of heartbeats

[SteveGo]

In 1969, I was a very young married man. My wife and I were making out on the couch while Neil landed on the moon. It was a very good day.

I remember Walter Cronkite talking about Neil's disdain for the aerobic training the astronauts were made to do back then. He said, "I only have so many heartbeats, I don't want to waste them running along the beach..."

Thank you Neil, you were a hero to me and many others. You had a pretty good number of heartbeats.

[MediumTex]

I've always thought of Neil Armstrong as a real human hero.  He became a hero by doing something that allowed him to be a winner without anyone else having to be a loser.

He also seemed like an utterly humble and down to earth guy.

I think that it is unlikely that any more humans will visit the moon, so the impressiveness of Armstrong's feat will only grow as time passes.

[dualstow]

Check out the recent (and rare) interview he did with an Australian accountant. I believe it was granted because Armstrong's father was an auditor.

http://www.theworld.org/2012/05/neil-ar ... bout-moon/

[craigr]

Very sad indeed. I have a collection of NASA Apollo/Gemini videos on DVD and what those astronauts and engineers did back then was miraculous. Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts rode on rockets designed by engineers with slide rules! Never doubt what a nerd on a mission can accomplish. All the astronauts were incredibly brave.

Aside from the big Hollywood productions like Apollo 13, I highly recommend these DVDs for the backstory on the Apollo missions and what it took to get to the moon:

Moon Machines
For All Mankind

[AgAuMoney]

It's the passing of an era.  Or at least the beginning of the end. 

I wonder if he would have lived longer without the quad bypass.  Just a couple of weeks ago he was "recovering well."  Now he is gone because of "complications."  We like to think our medical technology can do almost everything.  And sometimes it seems almost miraculous.  But sometimes it causes problems.

[MachineGhost]

I wonder if he would have lived longer without the quad bypass.  Just a couple of weeks ago he was "recovering well."  Now he is gone because of "complications."  We like to think our medical technology can do almost everything.  And sometimes it seems almost miraculous.  But sometimes it causes problems.

I hate to be cynical, but it more the rule than the exception.  It's just not talked about openly because a lot of money is involved (expensive, risky surgical intervention vs lifestyle changes).  Nothing is going to change en masse until that generation dies off.