I feel very conflicted about Armstrong ... I was 8 when the EAGLE touched down, yet by the time I was 18 I was wondering 'where is Armstrong? where has the guy been?' as NASA's funding disappeared and the program got bashed and blunted.
Like Heinlein said, it takes a special gift for failure at PR to make a moonlanding seem routine, but by 1970 that is what it was for a lot of folks, and I gotta pin that on NASA. Why didn't NASA exploit Armstrong to some degree? Furthermore, why did Armstrong keep SUCH a low profile (I only recall him being back in the public eye after CHALLENGER, and only briefly.)
I can admire the guy on one level for wanting to stay out of the limelight; but in terms of what we may have lost, perhaps irretrievably lost, in terms of tech progress and God knows what else, in the last 40-odd years, due to the switch from a Promethean outlook to practically a hard stare into our own navels, I have to think THIS GUY COULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE.
On a lighter note, has anybody seen the Armstrong spoof from SNL - think it was the mid-90s, since it was actually funny. Has him staring up at the moon and yelling at it, saying stuff like 'hey moon - I nailed you, bitch' ... pretty good bit.
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