Neil Armstrong: First Man On The Moon (feat. Harrison Ford) [4K] | ARMSTRONG | Spark

this is astronaut neil armstrong command pilot for the apollo 11 moon landing mission columbus explored one new world how do you feel about such comparisons first he wasn't sure where he was going at least he thought he was going to china or the indies and ended up of course in a completely new world now i very much hope that we won't terminate at some place that we didn't expect to use a planet that we hadn't planned to visit we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges it's by the nature of his deep inner soul [Music] we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream i wouldn't say that fear is an unknown emotion to us the work that goes into the preparation for flight does everything it can toward their erasing those kinds of possibilities and i would say that as a crew we've among the three of us really have no fear of launching out on this exhibition the night before he went to the gate he said i just want you to know that you know we're confident we're we're coming back but yeah there is some risk in this mission and he just sort of stated it not dramatically at all because that wasn't how he was so okay good see you when you get back [Music] at six years old i was sheltered from a lot of the dangers a lot of the risks a lot of the worries my mom carried them all and she carried them in a way that i did not know that she had them we did not know that apollo 11 would make it to the moon we only knew that that was an attempt everything had to work uh and it just wasn't likely that everything was going to work out fine that there wouldn't be a glitch somewhere along the line looking back we were really very privileged to have lived in that thin slice of history [Music] where we changed how man looks at himself and what he might become [Music] [Applause] well there it sits out there the culmination of somewhere between 25 and 33 billion dollars the skills and dedication of about 300 000 technicians the solemn but uh certainly a risk-filled pledge of a president some heartbreaking failures and some stirring successes this is apollo saturn launch control we passed the six minute mark in our countdown for apollo 11 the flight to land of the first men on the moon and all is still go as we monitor our status for it i remember getting onto a little boat and we watched the launch from there my guess is that this was in case something went wrong t minus three we are go with all elements of the mission at this time filing command coming in now we are on the automatic sequence at this time i didn't know it was neil until they they they named him on tv and i said i know him well i didn't know he would progress this far but here he was in command of the moon landing hard to believe but if it was anybody it was going to be armstrong neil armstrong from wapacada ohio he's got to be he's got to be the guy when did you last talk to yourself yesterday about noon we had a nice long talk with him on various subjects mostly pertaining to the family the rest of the family is course at the cape you're going where you expect well chet with all of our technology we're having difficulty getting pictures from wapa canada ohio [Music] do we're at my grandparents home guapa canada ohio neal was born in this house in the living room august 5th 1930 couldn't have been better growing up in a small midwestern town with parents of german descent gave my father very strong values that's where he came from those were his roots you work hard um keep your nose clean really that kind of simple this is a picture with dean one and a half i'm 18 months older and neil is three years older we call each other neil the peel dean the bean june the prune the experts give ten to one she can't fly neal was sort of off in his own world taking a chance and there he goes we often found him in the corner reading his books we like to tease him but he accepted it with a big smile good boy george he was interested in airplanes from the time he was a little boy his mother bought him a 20 cent airplane and he built that [Music] then from the 20 cent he went to a 50 center and went on up pretty soon he was building with motors and flying them and testing them [Music] i knew what i wanted to be when i grew up i wanted to be an airplane designer i wanted to spend my life in aviation he got his pilot's license before he got his driver's license it was more important to him to be able to fly than to be able to drive [Music] the first time you solo any airplane is a special day the first time ever you solo is an exceptionally special day [Music] there was a great deal of excitement in my mind when i got to do that first flight he had turned 17 in august he went to uh college [Music] he was doing a navy scholarship [Music] i couldn't have been happier with what i was doing going into engineering two years of study then into the navy flight training and then three years of active duty [Applause] a highly trained and well-equipped north korean army swarmed across the 38th parallel to attack unprepared south korean defenders caught off guard they were all but overwhelmed until the united nations took its historic vote to intervene [Music] i got my wings in august of 1950 so i was then assigned to a jet fighter squadron we immediately prepared for the korean action i was very young very green neil was just another name on the list when he came to the squadron he was quiet and poised and very confident he was unusually quiet i would say reserve it to himself nobody was concerned about him at all we knew he was a good aviator good idiot [Music] at that time we're flying the f9 f2 the panther very honest airplane do everything you wanted it to do except climb our job was to support our ground forces in our case mostly marines we learned flax suppression and how to knock down the bridges and the railroads you understand that there's going to be casualties when you go so you've probably made most of that adjustment in your mind ahead of time many younger people are uncomfortable with the idea of death i shared that uneasiness dear folks we had a terrible accident aboard our ship four were killed and five missing approximately 15 others were badly burned i knew well four of the nine dead and the five of the injured it was a tragedy it took me a long time to get over it i won't say we weren't scared because we were but uh your training takes over that gets you through the sticky parts dear folks there's a lot of war to go yet last monday september 3rd while unarmed reconnaissance i was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire i was diving on a target at the time and narrowly averted hitting the ground but hit some electric lines shaving off about five feet of starboard wing i was able to nurse the aircraft back across the friendly territory where i bailed out no other news right now same old neil he was just one of the boys until that incident and when we started evaluating his decision making and his skill in flying that airplane to where he did that made him kind of head and shoulders above the rest i value those experiences very highly because you build a lot of character and you build a lot of backbone and you're a better person for having learned to endure that situation and those risks t minus one minutes in counting we pass t minus 60. 55 seconds and counting neil armstrong reported back when he received the good wishes thank you very much we know it will be a good flight [Music] good luck and grad speed ignition sequence saturn 5 launch is just so sensory overload no uh video system or audio system i've ever heard captures the way that really sounds sort of the cracking of the exhaust going up it's almost like you're just being shaken uh but you're not moving right it's so it's it's a very odd thing but it's it was incredibly powerful and and something that i that i i will never forget the saturn 5 was a 3 000 ton machine with an energy more than that to lift you off the pad it felt like a train on a bad railroad track shaking in every direction and it was loud really loud it was an ostagon go to the moon machine the thing that i remember is the exhaust obscured uh the initial movement of the rocket [Music] you're like okay where is it i didn't perhaps realize how slow that saturn v you know sort of lumbers off the pad finally we could start to see the see the top of the rocket appear up above the clouds it was like okay [Music] [Music] [Music] mr houston you are go for savings this is the beginning of the most audacious undertaking that man has ever attempted we'll be back in just a moment [Music] my time in korea expired and i thought it was important to go back and finish my education when i went back to university kids looked so young i made him at purdue he was a freshman [Music] he didn't like to talk about much and he never did talk about much but um what he did say was seemed to be meaningful fell for you i just thought he was honest very good looking very funny after that evening he went home and told somebody that that was the one he was going to marry but he never asked me out until he got out of school [Music] and he came up to visit me on his way to edwards air force base in the mojave desert in california this is where test flights of all high-speed research aircraft have taken place being assigned edwards air force base was i think the goal of every pilot and certainly anyone who thought about ever being a test pilot this was one of the most exciting places to work in the world at that time dozens and dozens of new concepts configurations and tests something new to talk about every day and that was more and more technology was being introduced so there was this crossover between flying an airplane manually the old stick and rudder days and managing a sophisticated system in the air so it was a challenging period it was a dangerous business everybody knew it and those of us that survived i don't think dwelt much on the failures on the deaths [Music] we were married in 1956 [Music] january 1956 after that we went up to the desert bought a house up there it was a cabin that we bought a cabin that only had a fireplace for heat neal was trying to work on that and improve it and they had ricky i was a good kid he still is [Music] we moved when i was 5. so i do remember it although i tend to remember just like little snippets or almost like still pictures of it rather than uh longer scenes [Music] i remember walking on a path to a neighbor's house and a big rattlesnake went right across and i just kind of jumped over it and kept going come on baby when karen was born she's the sweetest thing in the whole wide world he called her muffy right away he absolutely loved that girl and he paid all of his attention to her like there was nobody else [Music] karen was a precious thing and she was rick's best friend [Music] in order to keep track of the children i would put cowbells on their back and tie them so that when they won't they would clank and that way i could hear them above the roaring time wind what a life that was they were both very happy those times those were good times [Music] [Music] moscow newspapers were first then headlines around the world echoed the news russia had blasted a man-made moon into outer space on every continent and in every land the story of sputnik one dominated the front pages when sputnik the russian satellite orbited the earth uh it it was a shocking uh moment for uh the world i suppose but certainly for the united states can you drop the atomic bomb from a satellite what can they do from that thing that we can't do now because we don't have any space vehicles that's where it started [Music] on april 12 1961 yuri alexevich gagarin flew once around the world in 89 minutes on april 14th president kennedy called nasa into the white house is there any place we can catch them what can we do can we put a man on the moon before them [Music] at edward's in the early 60s there was a transition into space flight and neil was on the forefront of that kneel through the x-15 everybody admired everybody flew the x-15 that was one of the ultimate goals if you could get in that program that was the best right the x-15 was a little airplane powered by a big rocket dropped from the wing of a b-52 bomber its rocket would burn for a minute and a half accelerate to about mach 6 coast up to 60 miles altitude then glide to a landing took you high enough we were flying into space and more importantly we were learning how to fly back in into the atmosphere i'm not sure who was the best pilot of the x-15 there were seven eight of them they were all very good but neil i think had a better concept of how and why the machine was put together and how it should be tested and therein i think there's an area that neo filled a very unique slot neil was a hell of an engineer [Music] a pretty good pilot too really this particular flight we went to somewhat above 200 000 feet looks pretty good 250. in the process i got the nose up above the horizon i tried to push down but discovered i had no aerodynamic controls it was actually skipping outside the atmosphere it wasn't going down because there was no air to bite into just like being on a very fast horse and riding it at full speed you've got to be looking out way ahead where the fences are where the rocks are and and start to avoid them early you can't wait till the last minute and then jerk on the range i just had to wait until i got enough air to have aerodynamic control and some lift on the wings and immediately started to make a turn back take it [Applause] easy just hold it steady and you'll settle right [Music] there neil could do things like that his credentials of performing under stress were clearly there that was neil did a magnificent job but i've got to say that he was not the type of person who would run out and say look at me i'm i'm neil armstrong neil was kind of person you just wanted to like when you were still working at edwards karen developed a tumor in her brain under under the age of three i knew something was wrong with her because she had balance troubles and you know i think i told my mom yeah she's having a hard time walking again but i couldn't put that together with the disease the tumor grew very very fast we tried radiation all through her radiation she smiled and never complained once never never never once she was a gift to both of them she died on their wedding anniversary neil mr dearly no i thought the best thing for me to do in that situation was to continue with my work keep things as normal as i could and try as hard as i could not to have it affect my ability to do useful things i was doing the best i could after karen died i was ready to go anywhere i thought a change would be good there was this project down in houston the apollo program they didn't really know what to test for exactly so they did everything they didn't miss anything as far as i knew [Music] they did every test known to man [Music] neil finally decided that he would try for this program and he had accepted when we moved to houston i was pregnant with mark mark was born yippee mark he felt so totally different from rick you know there are two opposites the neighborhood in houston there wasn't much of a neighborhood it was all it hadn't even been been made into a street yet [Music] ed white and i bought some property together and split it i built my house on one half of it and he built his house on the other we were good friends neighbors all the people in the neighborhood had someone that worked for nasa in one respect or another that whole community was very self-supporting everyone was in it together [Music] how i would characterize neil he was quiet introspective much more interested in details of things than i ever was you know you're looking to watch neil wants to know how it runs and i want to know what time it said neil lived in a shell and in order to get neil out of his shell you had to introduce a subject that he was interested in and you had to convince him that you knew something about that subject and if you pass that test and he'd pop out of his shell big smile on his face and be your best buddy he listened a lot and when he spoke he didn't use a lot of words but it was very clear that he had thought through something and and had come to a conclusion i was so pleased to be associated with the program the goals i thought were important to society in general and i would have been happy doing anything they asked me to do before men ever stand on the moon many technical hurdles must be overcome the steps remaining parallel the steps undertaken in the development of aviation project mercury put us through the kitty hawk stage in space our second step project gemini i've been capcom on chimney five they just splashed down my boss came up and said i'd like you to start working with neal's prime on jiminy 8. i thought really really he said he's waiting for you in his office go see him so i went over and there was a big smile as he always had you know okay so here we go let me tell you what we're gonna do [Music] we were in a race and it was very evident to us all the time you wanted not to be diverting your attention in any way to things you really didn't need to worry about you could stand across the street and you could not tell when quitting time was people didn't leave at quitting time 14 hours a day six and a half days a week it was just insane dad was training a lot he was not home very often my mother was very much of an unsung hero and dad not being you know the most verbose person he ever met and been guilty of not being very communicative so she wasn't always well informed about where dad was going what he was doing that just left mom to figure things out on her own and i think she did that she did it very very well and she did it without without complaint [Music] the objective of jiminy 8 was to rendezvous and doc was the first target vehicle anybody would have the agena for the first time people didn't know whether rendezvous would work or not once we got docked i would do an ev8 i was going to walk around the world i had a 90-minute eva and then a controlled reentry so it was our job to put all these pieces together in a full spectrum of space flight [Music] we had a squawk box in the house installed for the mission so you could hear mission control uh communications all the time rather than just what might be on tv stage two prevail is coming open five seconds t minus 20 seconds mark five four three two one ignition project the launch was great the second stage was all in the mail and then going through the rendezvous seeing the agena just actually spectacular spectacular view [Music] that's beautiful man that's great way to go brother you've done it done a good job [Music] okay jimmy eight you're looking good on the ground go ahead neil did the docking smooth as you would expect [Music] shortly after i looked over and saw neil's eight ball the attitude horizon was in a 30 degree bank there was no horizon out the window i said neil we're in a bank and you look down and say we are in a bank neil says turn the eugeno off which i did he turned on the gemini and then everything stabilized for about four or five minutes and then it started to turn started to roll again when the rates became quite violent it was a bit dicey you see murphy's law says bad things happen at the worst possible time and in this case we were out of radio contact we got down to about 13 propellant and decided we have to get off of the agena i hit the undock switch and when we pulled off the agenda we found out the problem was not the agena it was a gemini and then we started a very rapid roll rate [Music] [Music] [Applause] they were spinning at maybe a revolution per second and there was a very strong concern that they would black out and that would be it it would be over i wonder if there's any chances i don't know at that point mission control turned the squawk box off we're trying to check all that out now we're trying to get mission control did not know what was happening and they didn't want to expose a tragedy without being able to manage the situation that was something that my mother was not happy about she wasn't happy about that and she went over to mission control to find out what was going on and i was refused entry i would not have wanted been the one to tell her that she couldn't come in that wouldn't have gone well for them we got down to no other options and neil finally said we got to activate the rcs now the rcs was a small re-entry control system in the nose of a spacecraft once you activate that system that's your last gasp if you lose it you can't get back into the atmosphere he probably deduced it this is all i can do is try this and see if it works he had to reach up to an overhead panel to get a hold of switches that's amazing physiologically that in this high-speed role he could turn his head up and get the right switch which he did and he stopped the roll do have the spacecraft under control at the present time we're slowly drifting flight at that time they could see on telemetry that he had activated the reentry control system so almost immediately we we knew we were going to have to get them down quickly okay you're sending all of that in asap okay let's expedite capcom houston flight we are primed for erdogan we took great pride in landing close to the aircraft carrier that was awaiting us my carrier was located in the caribbean i landed near okinawa that's the furthest anyone's ever missed i don't expect that record to be broken some of the people were second-guessing nail about his performance i never did i thought he did a good job you know there's a lot of that among very competitive people neil's action i think saved the mission it upped my view of neil at that point you knew he had the right stuff [Applause] stayed calm didn't get excited that's what we were looking for in the first place for using test pilots guy that was used to putting his life on the line every time he flew there are a lot of people here most of them seem to be my family you're my people and i'm proud to be one of you they could have lost their life there's no point in talking about it they either do or you don't that's the way it is you know the spacecraft you're gonna ride on is a to a certain extent untried you approach it with any uh apprehension as compared to the gemini which had been flown before there's a great deal of uh pride involved in making a first flight so i think i'm i'm looking forward to the flight with a great deal of anticipation it was all over in one stunned horrifying second at t minus 10 minutes in a simulated countdown an electrical spark apparently shot out and ignited the 100 oxygen in the cabin horrified engineers watched the burst of flames and smoke envelop grissom white and chaffee they heard their last words of shock and surprise the crewmen never had a chance that was terrible could i i could hear his voice in that thing i could hear i i could hear all three of them it didn't last very long he only lasted with 10 or 15 seconds [Music] it was a very depressing site everything was burned and gray and melted it was a disaster the management were running running to get to the moon and i think they were willing to take some chances and i think that had they been thinking properly they wouldn't have taken them some very traumatic times i suppose you're much more likely to accept the loss of a friend in flight but it really hurt to lose them in a ground test that was a indictment of ourselves there was never any commotion about it like there would be today so you uh you're born but briefly and then you get on with the job it took the fire to rebuild the vehicle and i think that was the secret to paulo without it it would just wouldn't have happened i don't think we'd gotten to the moon [Music] the apollo missions came close enough together that we were in this constant one more step one more step then when 11 came along it all seemed different you know this time we were really gonna go land [Music] there were 30 people vying to be the first man on the moon i think they could have all done the job no question in my mind about it it was dick slayton who was responsible for crew scheduling had developed a program where if you were back up for one flight then three flights later you became the prime they all say there was a rotation method in it boy if it was it was a hard one to understand one seat and in it was a fellow named neil armstrong now why was that what were the reasons that he was the one and the others were rejected if you take the short view it is that he was probably the best qualified he'd been a combat pilot during korea he proved his medal there he was flying the x-15 and that put him above and beyond all the rest of the candidates if you want to take a longer view then you want to consider what was he going to be like after the flight that was equally important he wasn't going to go out and drink too much make a fool of himself he was a straight arrow [Music] a lot of people criticized neil because he didn't quote get out and sell the program but i think he was much more effective in his quiet way [Music] did i have anything to do with neil being the first man on the moon yes i did it dick slayton said aldridge is going to be the first guy on the moon up here says we don't want aldrin the first guy to be i just felt like buzz was not the right personality and would uh not be the best representative for the united states i thought neil would do better i didn't dislike aldrin uh didn't like him either we all have weaknesses i haven't met that guy yet i didn't know jesus we were a congenial bunch but really focused on the job buzz and i had both flown in korea and his flying skills i was sure were good his intelligence was high he was a creative thinker and he was willing to make suggestions i'm not sure i recognized at that point in time what might be considered eccentricities mike collins was a joy to work with able cheerful and relaxed he'd be the sole occupant of the command module whilst we descended to the moon's surface we were working night and day we felt the whole weight of the world on our shoulders everybody was looking at us there were some things that were done specifically for the benefit of giving the press the opportunity to either talk with us or take pictures of our activities in preparation we probably resented that to some extent how would you describe your attitude just before flight i was asked by the bosses you think you and the guys are ready and i had to say well it would be nice to have another month but we were in a race here and i had to say we're ready we're ready to go [Music] this is apollo control at 102 hours 12 minutes into the flight of apollo 11. we're now 21 minutes 23 seconds from the beginning of the powered descent to the lunar surface as we approached the landing mom woke me up so i was little probably you know groggy-eyed but it was all fun and no worry from my six-year-old point of view i was more than just a little amazed amazed not only because of the unlikely chain of events and quirks of faith that had put an ohio farm boy in that remarkable position but amazed even more because everything was working bye-bye eagle we're standing by for your burn report over [Music] club your again they lit the engine and the wheels came off of the thing we started having communication dropouts landing radar problems we were off trajectory so we were going to land uh shortcuts we couldn't understand why this was happening program alarm 1202 volvo 2 roger copy in mission control it got very very quiet [Music] you're always concerned when any kind of alarm comes on i didn't understand the nature of this particular alarm the computer had a lot of complaints but my own feeling was as long as the engine was operating right i had control i would be in favor of continuing no matter what the computer was complaining about level two alarm it's executive overflow if it does not occur again we're fine we're going to play we're going that alarm [Music] [Applause] when neal pitched over and he said hey we got a bunch of rocks out there we can't land here that was potentially the end if he couldn't find a place to land the autopilot was taking us in towards a very large crater about the size of a big football stadium with steep slopes covered with large rocks about the size of automobiles not a good place to land at all so i took over manually and flew it like a helicopter out to the west i just remember him saying yeah he's dennis he's off flying it himself for some reason and they were asking can anybody tell us where this thing is [Music] he was moving across the lunar surface pretty great speed we kept hearing the fuel callouts and that was grabbing all of our attention we knew we should be landing we knew how much fuel we do we were timing it on the ground what's going through your body is going to run out of petrol that's what's going through your mind 60 she had 60 seconds to land or we would call an abort then i called 30 seconds tension was increasing literally holding our breath are we going to make it buzz said we're picking up some dust i can remember thinking my god we're there we are blowing dust off the surface of the moon i heard contact and then there was a pregnant pause [Music] it was the same old kneel just calm as you can imagine uh you know unflappable [Music] i don't see how he did that so calmly because i was shouting it out we copy you down eagle you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again it was just a celebration we pulled it off we actually did it we made it the thought finally reached my consciousness i clasped the bulky glove of buzz aldrin on my right the silent handshake was the only congratulations necessary out of the field at the moment of touchdown i was terribly excited it's a marvelous thing that we have successfully managed to land safely on the moon is neil carrying anything uh for you to the moon but that's private okay neil we can see you coming down the ladder now when neal stepped out that's where you could really hear a pen drop because people were trying to listen to everything that was going on the um appears to be very very fine grained as you get close to it it's almost like a powder i'm going to step off the lamb now just the thought of the first step of a human being on another heavenly body was just to me personally overwhelming [Music] nobody knew he would say anything i mean there was no big plan for him to do anything and then he came up with the right words as usual it's one small step for man one diaper [Music] the thing that i remember about the first step was that nobody heard the first words in our living room that's kind of what i do what do you say [Music] something about one small step you know man where do you get that from that's perfect i thought well when i step off i'm just gonna be making a little step from there down to there but when i thought about all those 400 000 people that had given me the opportunity to make that step i thought it's going to be a big something for all those folks and indeed a lot of others who weren't even involved with the project so it was kind of a simple correlation of thoughts i think he said it pretty well don't you it was special and memorable but we weren't there to meditate we were there to get things done so we got on with it there were a lot of proposals for what to do on the lunar surface by different people some people thought a u.n flag should be there and some people thought there should be flags of a lot of nations my job was to get the flag there i was less concerned about whether it was the right artifact to place i'll let other wiser minds and mind make those kinds of decisions we were watching it in our living room and the fascinating thing was how each of the three generations reacted my wife and i of course were overwhelmed with the achievement my dad was speechless having been born in 1893 when there were no automobiles or buggies or anything to see this he could hardly comprehend it my two teenagers were sort of yeah i think maybe i saw this on a tv show last week i was with the president during the landing in the white house you know it could have been a disaster for him if something would have gone wrong who would have got the blame i tried to tell him that and i also tried to keep him from taking too much credit because he didn't deserve either the credit or the blame hello neil and buzz this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made for one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this earth are truly one thank you mr president it's a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the united states but all nations and the vision for the future [Music] being closest to the moon makes us realize that we're all human beings together i hope this brings unity i felt the world got closer today i thought we all got to know each other that much more good thing for all people for all the world everyone for they were united they were united at that time it was extremely exhilarating [Music] this is the greatest event in all the history of the human race today is new year's day of the year one [Applause] the whole thing was one of great exhilaration and pride about what we were accomplishing what he was accomplishing what the country was accomplishing what mankind was accomplishing [Applause] the apollo 11 was kind of like crossing the goal in a football game the rest of our flights had helped to advance the goal but neil and his crew were the ones that scored [Music] you know what he told me seeing the earth in the background was it that's what i remember more than anything to stand on the surface of the moon and look at the earth high overhead is certainly a unique experience although very beautiful it is very remote an oasis or an island but it is the only island that we know of that is suitable for man the importance of protecting and saving that home has never been felt more strongly protection is required however not from foreign aggressors or natural calamity but from its own population what a moment we've not all been working on it for so long and then there it was but in the back of our mind we were thinking about getting them home and get them off of there [Music] tranquility base uh houston roger glad you're cleared for takeoff roger i understand we're number one on the runway roger [Music] [Music] to all those americans who built those spacecraft and put their their heart [Music] and all their abilities in into those crafts [Music] [Music] it was sort of all about the team not the individual not his kind not what he did but everybody [Music] july 24th dawn in the pacific apollo blazes across the heavens coming back to earth at 25 000 miles an hour [Applause] we did new york chicago and la all in one day it was fabulous like nothing had ever seen before the streets were just jammed i mean it was 50 60 people deep [Applause] everybody was pushing and shoving and trying to get your attention [Applause] [Music] it was kind of crazy the amount of ticker tape and stuff like filling up the car you don't have any preparation for that experience [Music] this was the beginning this is the beginning of it all but there was nothing you could do i mean these people were just happy to see you they became immediate more than rock stars even they were world heroes and all three of them were not attention seekers at that point how do you propose to restore some normalcy to your private lives in the years ahead i i wish i knew the answer to the latter part of your question kind of depends on you [Music] [Applause] neil didn't like the exposure that he saw coming [Applause] he did a real good job at it during the world tour and everything like that everywhere we went our spokesman was nailed poor guy to make the speeches this is the beginning of a new era when man understands the universe around him in the beginning of the era when man understands himself [Applause] he did what he had to do and whenever he had to do it he was going to do it well but he might not like it and uh so that's a deal [Music] some of the activities he performed through a feeling of obligation it was part of his job he's probably the best person of all of us to have been the first man on the moon because of the way he handled it i mean i don't know i could ever take on that low and the fact that he's first everybody wants neil armstrong [Music] [Applause] [Music] we'd like to know when you're gonna take the first woman to the moon yeah we welcome you with open arms [Applause] because i can't believe it's gonna stop i think the amount of requests for him to come here do this speak show up write a letter a recommendation people would write letters neil armstrong usa and he would i certainly became aware of the stresses after the flight of apollo 11 with news crews and folks essentially camped out in our front yard at that point you could start to see a little bit of frustration with just being able to function normally you start scratching your head and you say oh gee whiz what do we do now thank god social media didn't exist back then at that point we moved to ohio the decision to move was very intentional to try to simplify our lives he just wanted to be a regular guy just like everybody else and he could he was like that the media at that time labeled my father as a recluse and it's just nothing could be further from the truth he got a bad rap from the press he just didn't like that publicity he wasn't comfortable taking credit for something that belonged to so many people [Music] i just don't deserve celebrity i wasn't chosen to be first i was just chosen to command that flight circumstance put me in that particular role that wasn't planned by anyone everybody is pretty numb about space by now but i think nobody cares at all these space shots have been too exclusively scientific in their orientation and i think the average man in america just feels that space is just a great waste of money because he doesn't feel any part of it five years later armstrong aldrin and collins are out of the space program and very different men mike collins now 43 briefly tried a state department public affairs job founded impossible and now heads the smithsonian air and space museum buzz aldrin now 44 suffers from bouts of depression and blames nasa for the boy scout fishbowl lives they were forced to live [Music] armstrong who'll be 44 next month is now a professor of aeronautical engineering at the university of cincinnati still his own man neil lives within himself and shies away from the press and public after we moved to lebanon and we got to spend more time together we were able to do the things that maybe we didn't get a chance to do when when i was younger we spent a lot of time together around golf he loved golf and and he he wasn't a great player um but he loved it as i got to know him our friendship developed we genuinely enjoyed one another's company um certainly on the golf course but socially as well that i think then led me to an ostentatious thought on my part i wonder if he would be interested in joining my corporate board most people i invited all really they'd say yes immediately i spent almost two hours with neil in his office he wanted to be sure number one that i wasn't using him also he wanted to know why i thought he would be a good board member so answering those two questions to his satisfaction took some time neil became a spectacular board member asked all the hard questions in fact i remember one board meeting he asked a particularly hard question and i couldn't help but i said who the hell invited you to get on this board in the first place and we all laughed he said you know who did not surprisingly neil went on several other boards united and learjet among them he was even the founder of the lloyds of london insurance business aptly named apollo put that in the can program confirmed challenger now heading down engines are 65 percent three engines uh running normally three good fuel cells three good apus challenger go with throttle up [Music] flight photo go ahead rso reports vehicle exploded copy just as things are settling down president reagan asked my father to be involved in the investigation committee for uh the challenger tragedy the space program was at risk at that point and he just didn't feel like he could say no and that took him right back into workaholic mode neil spent an enormous amount of time on challenger action and was very key in a situation like that and uh i want to pay particular tribute give credit to neil armstrong because he's done a great job he did so much of the engineering aspects of it that was a year of being away from home and i think that was very difficult for my mother i think he just had his priorities and it depended on where you were on that priority list and the truth was i was pretty low my father felt like there were things that he just couldn't say no to and my mother felt like she really wanted him to spend more time with her and with the family he said he would change he'd had 38 years to change and i just didn't say it would happen we attempted counseling and see if we could you know help him save it but you know we were way over our heads we've been living separate lives for years i just finally decided to make it final and i did and it was it was the right thing to do but it was difficult for the boys the one thing i regret is that my work required an enormous amount of my time and a lot of travel i didn't get to spend the amount of time with my family i would have liked ladies and gentlemen neil armstrong the first to plant his foot on the surface of the moon has been a pioneer in many ways and mr armstrong in asking you to come to the podium may i say that millions of americans have admired you not only for your achievement but for the quiet dignity with which you have conducted yourself and represented not only our country but humankind ladies and gentlemen neil armstrong i kind of lost touch with him for some time but then toward starting around 2000 somewhere in there he got more um available fellow astronauts ladies and gentlemen he was kind of back amongst us he had served his time and kind of had gotten a little bit maybe not so full of pressure wilbur wright once noted that the only bird that could talk was the parrot and he didn't fly very well [Applause] [Music] so i'll be brief it was very nice very pleasant to see neil enjoying himself i got a feeling that neil really felt like he was in the right place at the right time and he was enjoying what he was doing there you want to make a mark you'd like to leave the world a little better than when you came that's my goal [Applause] he said he would change and i think he did but it wasn't through me that that happened i'm happy that he married carol i have you know no axe to grind at all history is a sequence of random events and unpredictable choices which is why the future is so difficult to foresee open-heart surgery i think is always a cause for a concern you're not fighting you're anxious for it to be over with yeah mark called me and he said aunt june if you're coming you have to come now neil's dying [Music] i was in there with him and i said this is your sister squeeze my hand yeah he knew it was a tragic thing he was a good guy yeah we have lost an american icon neil armstrong had heart surgery earlier this month just days after his 82nd birthday his wife reportedly telling friends he was doing well with his recovery passing today of a true american hero carrying that pioneering spirit right into space i was honored to be one of the eulogists at his memorial service let me read the last paragraph of it because i can't say it any better let me close with this neil's historic statement from the surface of the moon said that it was one small step for a man one giant leap for mankind well it may have been a small step but it was taken by a giant of a man he was that rarest of men one who simply did what he believed was right nothing more nothing less every time he knew who he was and he knew what he wanted to do and he knew how to go after it and i think he did just that [Music] everybody's proud of what he's accomplished could i have done that i'm certain i could have done that that's who we are [Music] he was a wonderful representative of the united states and beyond that he was a wonderful human being [Music] i liked his humility see him on an airplane you'd never realize this guy was even my pilot [Music] obviously he was a great stick and rudder pilot and he'll be remembered in aviation and even space circles for that but it's the more intellectual side of him in the fact that he was able to mix it all together and produce this beautiful blossom neil was a super guy he was a class guy and i loved him [Music] i am and ever will be a white sox pocket protector nerdy engineer born under the second law of thermodynamics steeped in steam tables in love with free body diagrams transformed by laplace and propelled by compressible flow [Music] god bless you good night from apollo 11. [Applause] [Music] i float among the clouds this old earth can't hold me down and my troubles they are far far below up here there are no bombs and up here there are no crowds and now i'm gonna soar as long as i can go [Music] is [Music] i'm exactly [Music] down there i feel the stress the work that builds the relentless press the weight of things [Music] it's a peaceful mess that's perfectly unique there's a job to do i know responsibilities [Music] is [Music] listen [Music] choose [Music] earth gone as long as i could go [Music] grass [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's a flight a fancy [Music] i'm exactly where i want to be [Music] you

Channel: Spark

Views: 21,805

Rating: 4.8705034 out of 5

Keywords: saturn v, saturn 5, rocket documentary, space documentary, space race, the saturn v story, saturn five, apollo documentary, spark documentary, saturn rocket, nasa documentary, apollo saturn v, saturn v story, apollo 11 documentary, space shuttle, saturn documentary, rockets documentary, saturn five rocket, apollo 11, apollo 11 launch, space shuttle documentary, wernher von braun, apollo space program, space rocket, apollo rocket, neil armstrong, first man in the moon

Id: v4feYpNzcd4

Length: 99min 29sec (5969 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Pons__Aelius]

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[u/Girth_rulez]

Armstrong is a fascinating character. RIP.