I wonder if there are rocket ships in heaven... (Neil Armstrong has died)

[KiaKat]

Neal Armstrong, first man on the moon, dead at 82.

End of an era.

[JoitheArtist]

Neil Armstrong has died

The first man on the moon passed away today at the age of 82.

The statement from his family is here: http://tinyurl.com/cex4o7c

[Rapscallion]

Sadly the link doesn't work for me. However, I'm stunned. I had no idea he was that old.

Rapscallion

[NorthernZel]

Just found out via Twitter. RIP.

[JoitheArtist]

(Fixed the link, hopefully it works now.)

[Ironclad Alibi]

I am saddened by this. I was part of the team that helped put him on the moon. I was a co-op engineering student at Cape Kennedy and worked in the office that had responsibility for the digital computer and data adapter on the moon rocket.

[Aethian]

Wow...man and I was so thrilled when I got to glimpse him in FL once. Course I didn't know who he was at the time...only that he was important.

[Bandit]

Neil Armstrong and the Moon landing is my first memory.

RIP, Neil. Every time I look at a full moon, I'll think of you.

B

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

He took that last giant leap. RIP.

I have a sudden urge to go outside and look at the moon.

[MoonCat]

Just got home about an hour ago and heard this on the TV. I cried. I remember watching the moon landing on TV. It's funny, I kept looking at the moon while we were out...not knowing until later that the first man to set foot on it had died.

[Jester]

Was just at Johnson Space Center in June, so this makes it seem even more real to me than it already would have been. He was one of my heroes in grade school, along with Evel Knievel. I was born almost a year after that historic first step, so that history was definitely part of my upbringing and education.

[wolfie]

Ironic that within the past week my local paper had an article about the flags on the moon - the first one was knocked down (too close to the lunar module, hit by rocket blast when they took off) but the others (at least the poles they were hung from) are still standing. As for the flags themselves, if they haven't been destroyed by ultraviolet light affecting the nylon, they're no longer U.S. flags - the ultraviolet light over the past 40 years would have bleached them white.

For such a major project, you'd think that they'd have made up "unbleachable" pigment-dyed flags with a fabric chosen for its resistance to ultraviolet light.