Neil Armstrong
It's a good call when you take a look at his life and what he did with his Path.
The kid from Wapokoneta [hows that for middle america!] was building balsa wood model planes before he was 10.
His bicycle route paid for flying lessons; he got his pilots license before he could drive.
He flew the X-15, a craft that flew at Hypersonic [faster than mach 5] speeds.
He joined Nasa in the second or thind bunch after The Mercury 7. Just qualifying to APPLY to be an astronaut required:
-An degree in Engineering or related Science Field
-Test Pilot Experience
'Test Pilot' means 'fly the most dangerous untested stuff in the worst conditions to see when it starts to go unstable; and if you mess up your day ends in being Burnt Neyond Recognition.'
So he made it into space in the Gemini [2 man] flights, sandwiched btween Mercury and Apollo. His Gemini flight almost ended is disaster when a rocket on thir ship started firing and woudnt stop, basically they were in something the size of a minivan and it was flipping over once a second and getting faster, fast enough that they might black out = 2 dead astronauts in orbit.
Armstrong made the call, and shut down the entire Main system, and fired up the Re-Entry system, and like out of a friggin movie, he stabilizes the craft. The mission is scrubbed and they must splashdown immediately, but he saved two asses, and the space program that day.
That's just the stuff that leads UP to Apollo 11.
One day Deke Slayton called Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins into his office, they had NO clue; imagine you were one of them as Deke says:
'Ok, here it is, you are it. You are the Prime Crew for The 'G' Flight, the First Landing. If all goes well with Apollo 9 and 10, you three will be it. The first to Walk. That is all.'
Meaning: They are going to shove me and 2 other people into a little cone that sits on top of a rocket that is 365 feet high and weigh 6,000,000 pounds. They are going to fill it with a few million pounds of liquid oxygen and kerosene, about enough such that we have the explosive equivalent of a small nuclear bomb. I will sit, strapped into a seat, bolted into a capsule, and they will light this thing, the size and weight of a Navy Destroyer, and it's gonna go, wait for it, this is not a joke, to the fucking MOON.
Its 2am, I can do another 5 chapters off the top of my head, but later. Good choice, you peeps who dont know about the Apollo Program, and I can blame ya coz it's the 1960's and that's not exactly yesterday, but you should get some books, and there are some new Kick ASS documentaries with Awesome footage of the Program, I guess as a result of movies like Apollo 13.
Oh, wait. They never really walked. Soundstage. Sorry.
<IMG SRC="http://members.aol.com/miketeachr/sigpic">