Neil Armstrong, In His Own Words
The first moonwalker's storied aviation career
- By Tony Reichhardt
- AirSpaceMag.com, August 27, 2012
NASA
One of the more harrowing events in Armstrong's career was his ejection from a crashing lunar landing research vehicle (LLRV) in 1968. He described the accident in "First on the Moon":
“It was my twenty-first flight in the LLRV. I was flying the terminal portion of a simulated lunar landing profile; I lifted the vehicle off the ground and reached an altitude of about five hundred feet in preparation for making the landing profile. I had been airborne for about five minutes and was down to about two hundred feet when the trouble began. The vehicle began to tilt sharply. Afterward this incident was reported as an explosion, but that was erroneous. It’s just that there are all the exhaust products of those rocket engines going off, and since there were a lot of engines firing at once people on the ground thought they were seeing an explosion. They were mistaken…
This particular vehicle was the first LLRV…and it had made about fifty flights at Ellington before the day of the crash. This day it fell straight down. The ejection system threw me somewhat east of the landing point of the machine, but the wind was from the east. At the time my chute opened I was a bit concerned that I might be drifting down into the fireball, because by now the vehicle had crashed and was burning. I started thinking about slipping the chute, but the wind was strong and I actually missed the flames by several hundred feet.
I got up and walked away after I landed. The only damage to me was that I bit my tongue.”
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Comments (6)
A brush with death and he bites his tongue, is that the secret to a successful carrier that includes Washington? I was just exiting teenage hood when he and Buzz landed, a young adult who had followed the race and was ready to do my part when reality and the economy of the '70s hit. When someone tries to win an argument with things were different then say yes, there were not as many negative people then. After the moon many of us felt we could solve any problem with out today's collateral damage with today's solutions. Enough regulations now there are few home built solar collectors compared to then. Those were heady times to bad we ruined it with the Department of Education. Neil and Buzz will always be my role models.
Posted by Terry on August 27,2012 | 04:40 PM
Who shall be the next Amstrong in America. Who shall be fearless like the late hero?
Posted by Gift on August 29,2012 | 01:47 AM
There shall never be another Armstrong in America....another fearless hero. We are too advanced now...or, in the words of William Shatner's narrative during the opening credits of Star Trek: "Space, the final frontier." Space truly is the final frontier and now matter now if we put a man (or woman) on Mars, Venus or Jupiter, it will not have the same excitement or drama as Armstrong's lunar landing. It was the FIRST time man ventured from the earth and stood on ground not part of the earth. We were still relatively naive with regards to space travel. It hadn't been that long since the Apollo 1 fire claimed the lives of three American astronauts. There were still many questions regarding whether Armstrong and Aldrin could safely lift off of the moon and return to earth.
Now, spaceflight has become so routine, we hardly pay any attention to a launch or a landing.
No, there will never again be a hero the likes of Neil Armstrong. There will never be a "next" one...
Posted by Thomas Carr on August 30,2012 | 04:58 PM
He was a quiet emissary for Earth and for the United States. I was a little kid when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon but recall all the excitement. It changed history and brought President Kennedy's challenge to fruition.
We need more challenges that make us stretch and grow, and less challenges like militarism and arms races that simply waste our precious resources -- including human life. Thank of all that we can accomplish by working together as a species!
Posted by Ken O'Brien on September 5,2012 | 12:00 PM
Neil Armstrong like Charles Lindbergh were "Firsts", neither basked in the limelight. Just quietly moving into history without fanfare, unique American qualities.
Posted by Ben M. Colcol on September 22,2012 | 06:17 PM
Why do we not have a national holiday for Neil Armstrong??? He is clearly one of the bravest men this country and the world has ever known.
Posted by Don Bille on January 2,2013 | 11:01 PM