NASA Remembers Neil Armstrong

I can recall quite vividly when the nine of us met for the first time we were told to go down to sign in under the name of max Peck and it turned out that all night of us signed in under the name of Max Peck then there was this young fellow that I said you know we introduced each other and he was a fellow buddy man Neil Armstrong and I said well I were you in the are you in the Navy or the Air Force he says no I I work for NASA I thought oh boy we got a ringer here it's going to be a tough battle to get a flight off with Neil aboard but he turned out to be a team player a real great guy and as we know from you know the history of what went on after that after people had looked up for tens of thousands of years and wondered what was up there Neil was the first person to ever make a footprint on some place other than Earth I told Neil once that I'm not a very jealous person but for him I'll make an exception on that one that first step on the moon was really something he always had car troubles and he drove out one time and had one of his cars and had quit working out at work so we got barred a tow rope from the maintenance people and I hooked it up to my station wagon and up to his car and I told him into Lancaster at about 70 miles an hour I could see him shaking his fist at me know when to Politan we went to the moon to I I like to tell Neal and always did remind him that Apollo 10 we painted the white line in the sky so we wouldn't get lost so all he'd have to do is worry about that little thing about landed I got to see him at the Congressional Gold medal ceremony back in November we got him to a restaurant and he spent time with general Stafford Gene Cernan the Collins and they got the laugh and joke I mean I was sitting out in the car waiting for him so I could get him back to the hotel and I had to finally go in there because I saw the the rest were closing down and they were all in there just laughing and getting I had to go in and put my hands on my hips and say okay fellas it's time to go you know and Neil came out he's how we're gonna dance on the street and I said no we're not dances preach one I gotta gonna be no he always came away from a conversation with Neal thinking that he wants you to be the important person not himself in this in this encounter and so yeah it was a delight to talk to everybody like Neal he was quiet he was a man of many talents he was also a good friend I always think of yellow as a friend and it's just too bad he's gone but looked himself as being a a as being sort of out on the tip of the spear if you will and there were just a lot of thousands of people there were designers and engineers and and people who made made it possible for him to be out there doing what what he did and no one can take away anything from that but he saw himself as the results of the work of a great team of people Neal was sincere he always always felt and said that you know it's not about me it's about those other five hundred thousand people who made it possible for me to do what we did what he did you know he always considered himself the tip of the arrow on the strengthen the bow was he an American people who made it possible I often use Neil as a guide when things are getting a little bit crazy and I think okay we got to stick to the science we got to stick to the engineering that's the most important and try and avoid the hype and Neil was very good at avoiding the hype you know he was very much the straight shooter you know let's get the job done and he carried that into his professional life and as far as you know we could see from the outside his personal life it never was about him he I don't think I was even in his vocabulary it was about the team the mission the job that it had to be done and don't focus a attention on me focus it on on the product and in and the end accomplishments that you want to get out of this activity and it's sort of the old as long as everybody pulls on the rope in the same direction you know you can move mountains he was that kind of guy look at the Apollo 11 mission patch he was commander that mission and as as it went back then the astronauts designed their mission emblem and and there was one for every mission that particular mission patch look at it closely there's no astronaut names on it why is there no astronaut names on it well the word at the time was because the commander of the mission who has 51% of the vote what goes on the patch didn't want the astronauts to get credit for our country being the first to land on the moon he wanted our nation to get credit for it so no names on the patch there's an eagle there of course representing the strength of our country but the eagle is not carrying arrows in a form of arrogance or military it's carrying an olive branch for peace and and to me that that kind of represents the personality of Neil in life it it seems like when we lose something God has a way of replacing it with something in and while there is no comparison whatsoever between curiosity and Neil Armstrong it is a second wave of explorers beyond low-earth orbit and so it did worry me that you know here's this this new Explorer and I sure hope I hope it's not replacing you know the icon so he just wanted to know that other kids could it could be inspired not just only by his accomplishments but by the accomplishments of a country the impossible is possible all you got to do is go on and do it I'm Neil Armstrong I was the first human being on another planet this universe if I can do it why can't you do it now how's the 18 year old a 16 year old a 25 year old going to argue with Neil Armstrong he wanted to inspire these young people to dream and his desire was to spire these dreamers to dream on to take us back again when no man has been before I think if it Neil would certainly find peace within himself to know and I think he did to know that he is deed inspire this generation I could see it in her eyes I could see it in their hearts by standing in front of these kids and saying hi I'm Neil Armstrong bingo there's nothing they can't do well Neil Armstrong and the early astronauts were really the pioneers of exploration that for the first time all of us could see it as it was happening when I think of something like Lewis and Clark you you took weeks to hear about what happened with exploration but for this generation of explorers we could experience it and we could see ourselves doing things that no one had ever before and I was eight years old watching Neil and Buzz walk on that the moon the first time and it did seem to me at that point that I could do anything and I'm not sure if they hadn't done it I would have grown up thinking of I hope in some way that who he really was can be captured for people so that future generations could profit from him because if we had a role model Neil was one of our best role models whether it was going into space or being an engineer or being a successful businessman or anything like that that his approach of being quiet not assuming but accomplishing things I think that is something of his legacy that young people would appreciate we all lost a piece of ourselves today all of us who consider ourselves explorers I've often wondered if during these passing years when Neil looked up at the beautiful moon he thought hmm been there done that and I believe God sent Neil here to do what he needed to do and once his assignment was up then God called him back home and so I'm really thankful and glad for that you

Channel: NASA

Views: 425,099

Rating: 4.8381548 out of 5

Keywords: NASA, Armstrong, Apollo, 11

Id: 1pQKZc2AXW0

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/mmmjon]

liek dis if u cry everytim

[u/Merovee]

Hopefully relevant: http://imgur.com/2TzCA

[u/Titan_Cronus]

Really good video. I'm excited that we'll be able to live the first man on Mars soon.