Neil Armstrong Passes Away!

Neil Armstrong has died after complications from heart surgery. The former astronaut was the first American to walk on the moon.

The first American astronaut to walk on the moon has died. The famed aviator has passed away according to multiple sources. Armstrong along with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins have piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the Earth's moon. This pave the gateway for missions to the planet Mars and dwarf planet Pluto.

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney issued statements in regards to the death of a legendary hero of flight.

Hailed from the state of Ohio, Neil Armstrong was in the United States Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft. As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the paraglider research vehicle program (Paresev). He graduated from Purdue University and the University of Southern California. He became an astronaut in the late 1960s.

Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel.

Armstrong is famed for saying the words: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!


USA Today and the Associated press reported that he had undergone heart surgery August. 8, three days after his 82nd birthday. His family said that Armstrong had passed from post-surgery complications.

"We are heartbroken to share the news that Neil Armstrong has passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures,'' the family said in a statement. "Neil was our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend."


The lunar landing made him more popular than his hero, aviator Charles Lindberg , but Armstrong shunned the spotlight. After walking on the moon, he lived a mostly private life, buying a farm and teaching aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati  until 1979.

When he appeared in Dayton, Ohio in 2003 to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight, he bounded onto a stage before 10,000 people packed into a baseball stadium. But he spoke for only a few seconds, did not mention the moon, and quickly ducked out of the spotlight.

"Neil Armstrong was a pioneer of flight and that is how he would want to be remembered," says space historian John Logsdon , author of JFK  and the Race to the Moon. "In his mind he flew all kinds of vehicles that set record firsts, and one of them happened to be the first one on the moon."

Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins assisted Neil Armstrong in the Apollo 11 mission.

Armstrong basically saw himself as an aviator first and foremost, part of the long tradition of American pilots going back to the Wright Brothers, Logsdon says.

"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request,'' his family said in a Saturday statement. "Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

"He will be part of history forever," Logsdon said.

He had died in Columbus, Ohio today.