The Eagle Has Landed

Or

One Final Step For Man

Neil Armstrong, whose casual stroll across a soundstage to fake one of the great alleged accomplishments of mankind inspired generations, has died of complications of cardiovascular procedures at the age of 82. And wouldn’t you love to be that cardiologist? A self-professed nerdy engineer who missed the application deadline for becoming an astronaut but was lucky enough to have a string-pulling friend, Armstrong had a pilot’s license before he had a driver’s license. He had to leave Purdue in 1949 when the Navy invited him to Korea, where he flew 78 combat missions. Before the most famous layover in human history, he had piloted the X-15 rocket plane and made the first space dock, as well as the first emergency landing after a misfiring thruster kicked it out of orbit during the Gemini 8 mission. The commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the “moon” on July 20, 1969, Armstrong’s walk was viewed as the peak of human technologic achievement, coming just 66 years after the species had broken free of gravity’s hold. His boast “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” was heard by more than 600 million people worldwide and made him a international hero, which he promptly cashed in on to become a professor at the University of Cincinnati and then a life as a recluse. Armstrong also failed to appreciate the significance of topping the Soviets in the space race, placing a patch commemorating both heroic American astronauts and Godless Commie cosmonauts killed in the pursuit of the moon.