Neil Armstrong

The Death of a Great Man

 It was with great sadness that I heard of the news of the death of Neil Alden Armstrong, the first man to walk on the surface of the moon.  One of my great interests is the Apollo programme and especially Apollo 11.  

All astronauts are without doubt, brave people, but to have been the first of two men to put foot on an alien planet was, to my mind, a great act of bravery.  And the more one reads about that great exploit, the braver they seem.  Landing caused enough missed heartbeats back in Mission Control with only a minute's calculated fuel left in the descent stage of the Lunar Excursion Module as Neil Armstrong looked for a place sufficiently free of boulders on which to land.  But for me, the most nerve-racking part of the mission had to be firing up the engine on the assent stage and hoping it worked.  If it hadn't, then Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would have been stranded on the moon with no hope of rescue.

 May he rest in peace and rise in glory!