They were divorced in 1994, when he married Carol Knight.Īrmstrong had his first joyride in a plane at age 6. He married his college sweetheart, Janet Shearon, in 1956. 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio, Armstrong was the first of three children of Stephen and Viola Armstrong. His life was about piloting,” Hansen said.īorn Aug. Hansen said stories of Armstrong dreaming of space exploration as a boy were apocryphal, although he was long dedicated to flight. “He’s a recluse’s recluse,” said Dave Garrett, a former NASA spokesman. He took no major role in ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the moon landing. The next year he was appointed to a desk job, being named NASA’s deputy associate administrator for aeronautics in the office of advanced research and technology.Īrmstrong’s post-NASA life was a very private one. The Apollo 11 moon mission turned out to be Armstrong’s last space flight. the public put on stepping down that ladder onto the surface itself, Neil never could really understand why there was so much focus on that.” Armstrong,” told CBS: “All of the attention that. James Hansen, author of “First Man: The Life of Neil A.
“I kind of hope that somebody goes up there one of these days and cleans them up,” he said. He once was asked how he felt knowing his footprints would likely stay on the moon’s surface for thousands of years.
“I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks but for the ledger of our daily work,” Armstrong said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program in 2005. He even seemed frustrated by the acclaim it brought. Neil Alden Armstrong was 38 years old at the time and even though he had fulfilled one of mankind’s age-old quests that placed him at the pinnacle of human achievement, he did not revel in his accomplishment.