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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 2461.PDF
FLIGHT International. 17 Jul/ 1969 Three men to the Moon Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins were selected from 52 astronauts currently on NASA's active list. Nine further Apollo flights after Apollo 11 will give about 60 per cent of the astronauts the opportunity to go to the Moon—and some of these will be ambitious flights indeed. But there can only be one "first flight" N o PEVVER THAN 66 candidates, have so far been selected by NASA for astronaut duties. They have been re cruited in six groups. These groups, together with the number of men in each selection, are as follows: group I, April 9, 1959 (7); group 2, September 17, 1962 (9); group 3, October 8, 1963 (14); group 4, June 28. 1965 (6); group 5. April 4, 1966 (19); and group 6, August 4, 1967 (11). Six men have resigned or transferred, and eight more have died, so that the total number of active astronauts at present is 52. Biographies of the three Apollo 11 astronauts are given below. Neil Aiden Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, on a farm at Wapakoneta, Ohio, and his initial education took place there. From the earliest age he was obsessed with aviation, and his first experience of flying came when he peisuaded his father to allow him a joyride in a visiting Ford Trimotor. His practical enthusiasm found a let-out in making model aircraft, and he later joined the US Navy and flew, as a pilot, from 1949 to 1952. During his fighting career over Korea he flew 78 combat missions, and was once shot down, landing fortunately behind the United Nations lines. Back in America, Armstrong graduated in 1955 from Purdue University with a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering, and attended post-graduate courses at the University of Southern California. Also that year he joined the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (now the NASA Lewis Research Centre). He was involved with the flight programmes of the F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104 and B-47, and a paraglider. He also flew the Bell X-l rocket air craft, but the highlight of his flying career was undoubtedly his association with the X-l5 programme. As one of the 12 pilots qualified to fly the world's fastest research aircraft he made seven flights, the first of which took place on November 30, 1960. During these flights he achieved 4,000 m.p.h. and attained a height of 200,000ft. As a relief from professional flying, Armstrong flies light aircraft and sailplanes, his skill with the latter earning him the international Gold C badge. His total flying experience is about 4,000hr. Armstrong was one of the nine men selected by NASA in 1962 for astronaut training. This group, the second to be selected, included Borman, Conrad, Lovell, McDivitt, Stafford and Young. He was the back-up command pilot for the Gemini 5 flight, and command pilot on Gemini 8. During this flight, which took place on March 16, 1966, he and fellow-astronaut David R. Scott came near to disaster when a faulty rocket thruster caused the craft to tumble out of control. The flight was terminated after only 6hr of the planned three-day mission, and the two astronauts were credited with exceptional pilot skill in overcoming the Spacecraft commander Neil Armstrong, the only civilian on Apollo II, with his wife jan, and their two sons Ricky (12) and Mark (six). Armstrong and his crew spearhead 400,000 people in 20,000 firms in the eight-year American effort to reach the Moon problem and recovering the spacecraft safely. Armstrong was subsequently designated back-up command pilot for Gemini II. He has more experience with the LLTV (the lunar- landing training vehicle) than any other astronaut, and a more recent incident occurred on May 6, 1968, when the lunar-landing research vehicle which he was flying became uncontrollable and forced him to eject at low altitude. The astronaut received the 1962 Octave Chanute Award of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and the NASA Excep tional Services Award for his work in manned spaceflight. His present assignment is commander of the Apollo 11 flight.
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