You never heard of Chad then ?

WOT? NO GRAFITTI?

Apparently he rated his chances of surviving the mission at "about 90%".

There's a story in one of today's papers about how he nearly died on the Gemini 8 mission in 1966. He and his co astronaut were on the verge of falling unconscious after the craft started spinning wildly. He only just managed to correct the fault. If he'd failed there would have been 2 corpses orbiting the earth for the next 10 years, something which would probably have brought an end to the programme.

I was fortunate to attend one of his very few lectures. Rather like listening to an avuncular university professor, a genuinely modest man who seemed completely unaffected by his experiences.

Yes, it's a landlocked country in Africa, capital N’Djamena.
Next!
And neither Kilroy, Chad nor Foo would have put 'woz 'ere'.
They put 'was here'.

I still want to know why they stripped him of the Tour de France victories ?

Because he was drug pedalling (sic).

A great pilot who will be remembered forever.

RIP Neil.

First Michael Jackson and now Neil Armstrong.





God really isn't a fan of the moonwalk is he?

A great pilot and sinner who will be remembered forever by God as a trespasser.

You've never heard of Photoshop



RIP Neil

An all time hero of mine, as a 12 year old I was glued to the mission on the telly and subsequent missions. Never forget visiting Kennedy Space Centre when I docked in Mayport Naval Base in 1978 and had my photo took next to a full size Saturn 5 rocket, amazing stuff. How many humans will be remembered in a 10,000 years ? , the likes of Armstrong, Gagarin will be, I am sure, true pioneers who optimise the real human spirit of adventure.

where will NA be buried, Arlington maybe ? (or maybe cremated ?) - the reason for asking is that you mentioned Gagarin and I have visited his cremated remains that are behind a plaque in the wall of the Kremlin about 50 yards from Lenins tomb - he is still considered a hero of the Soviet Union - NA will surely have the same kind of status ?

Maybe his remains will be put in a canister and shot into space ?

What about Valentina Tereshkova as well ? She was the first female Cosmonaut in space.

Why is it debatable? Very few things are beyond any question. Armstrong being the first man on the moon is one of them.

Speaking of Gagarin and Armstrong and Aldrin etc...

Can anyone remember the names (no cheating, no googling) of the three astronauts who died in a fire on the launchpad of one of the early Apollo flights ?

Probably not many, I certainly can't.

How do we select our heroes ?

good question MF

to me a hero is someone of whom I have great respect whether it be a sportsperson or any person I consider worthy because of personal ability or courage shown

two footballers stand out for me - one Jimmy Greaves and the other Dave McKay both great footballers but strong guys who overcame great personal battles to keep going - my musical hero is John Ogdon the concert pianist who died in '89, the man was a master at the keyboard, probably the greatest but fought against inherited mental health most of his life only to die of pneumonia when he had found relative peace of mind, proof indeed that the line between genius and madness is very fine...

when I visit a WW1 or WW2 War Cemetary I see fields of heroes who died to give us what we have today

And there, Mr Field, is a question deserving of its own thread. Why don't you start one?

Is Neil Armstrong in the same league as the Wright Brothers?

That's just plane silly

Alright - I will

We go for the tin on the right.

I'm not quite sure how this has got to selection of heroes.
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon.
Buzz Aldrin was the second.
Michael Collins waited in the command module.

I remember this vividly as I watched it unfold.
They were the first team.

Five other teams followed. I can remember the names of a few.
It had been done already, so what? Even though their efforts were no less outstanding.

Hillary and Tensing climbed Everest first (OK they could have been beaten to it, but it is unconfirmed). So we remember them.
Who cares or remembers who did it next? Even though conditions may have been worse and the feat superior.

And that's how it goes.
None of these are necessarily my heroes, but I will remember them. They will go down in history.

We don't 'choose' heroes anyway, it just happens. Some connection happens, and it's not just a question of admiration.

I apparently watched the Apollo 11 landing aged 1 and a bit. Can't say I remember much.

I do remember clearly believing as a child that we'd have moon colonies and human landings on Mars way before now. As it is, no human has even gone to the moon for 40 years. The space shuttle always seemed a bit naff in comparison to Apollo - the sheer bravado and utter commitment by the US was mind-boggling in comparison to so much that has followed.

The other thing about the US astronauts of that era is that whilst they were great pilots, they were also very smart individuals - many of them having science degrees to Masters levels (especially those on the later Apollo flights who were trying to make themselves more attractive for flight selection). They were by no means the 'jocks' they are sometimes portrayed as (that was more the slightly earlier era of test pilots like Chuck Yeager).

The other thing that strikes me is just how brave these guys were. The more you learn about the Apollo program, the more you understand just what was involved, the scarier it becomes. Just re-entry into Earth's atmosphere seems almost impossible; aim the floor of the craft at the atmosphere, and basically start to burn up like a meteorite to slow down a craft with no brakes and almost no controls, hurtling in from space and essentially just falling straight out of the sky.

Or on the Moon itself, no fuel to spare, and just one single chance that the take-off engine would ignite, take off and burn properly, with no backup.

I don't know how they picked the coolest men but Armstrong took manual control when the guidance computer overloaded and landed the Eagle by hand, with about 10 seconds fuel left. Then of course you had the matter-of-fact supercool of the Apollo 13 crew, when they were millimetres away from certain death but reacted as if they were in a car that had just developed a misfire.

I was always just in awe of the astronauts, and still am.

That pretty much sums up my thinking and saves me the job.
There again Apollo 13, who can remember all the crew?
I know Tom Hanks was one of them.

I was also very impressed at how the Yanks had beaten those nasty Russians to the punch.