{"id":3152,"date":"2015-05-07T12:12:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-07T10:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grupobcc.com\/?p=3152"},"modified":"2015-07-06T13:24:56","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T11:24:56","slug":"neil-armstrong-remembers-dead-spacemen-40-years-after-his-moonwalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grupobcc.com\/en\/news\/neil-armstrong-remembers-dead-spacemen-40-years-after-his-moonwalk\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Armstrong remembers dead spacemen 40 years after his Moonwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Neil Armstrong paid tribute yesterday to the spacemen who died paving the way for his 1969 Moonwalk as President Obama prepared to honour him and his Apollo 11 crewmates in Washington today for the 40th anniversary of their historic mission.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

In a rare public appearance, the first man on the Moon spoke of the spacemen who gave their lives for America\u2019s early space programme and how their sacrifice laid the foundations for his spectacular lunar debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you go to a place where everything you see is different than anything you\u2019ve ever seen before in your life, it\u2019s unique and it\u2019s memorable. And that certainly was,\u201d he recalled of the moment that he gazed across the lunar landscape and planted his footprints in the dust.<\/p>\n

He commemorated the life of Ed White, who in 1965 became the first American\u00a0spacemen to walk in the vacuum of space but was one of three astronauts killed in a launchpad fire two years later during tests of the pioneering Apollo 1 spaceCraft. The others were Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee.<\/p>\n

Mr Armstrong, 79, said: \u201cEd had an acute dedication to his work and he was committed to superiority in the conquest of space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Armstrong\u2019s appearance at the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Ohio was one of four public outings he is making as part of the Apollo 11 anniversary festivities. He was due to appear alongside Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, his spacemen crewmates, last night to give a joint lecture at the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s National Air and Space Museum in Washington ahead of today\u2019s White House reception. The three never bonded outside their capsule as other Apollo crews did. They are, says Collins \u201camiable strangers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Aldrin, also 79, who joined him at the weekend\u2019s Hall of Fame reception, appeared to play down Armstrong\u2019s \u201cfirst man on the Moon\u201d tag during a book-signing appearance yesterday, arguing that being second out of the door of the lunar landing module, Eagle, was just as significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climax maybe of my life was landing on the Moon with Neil. And landing is more important than walking around outside, despite what everybody wants to think,\u201d he said. \u201cLanding opens the door to do everything else that had never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Apollo 11, the three spacemen:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Armstrong, Collin and Aldrin<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Eugene Cernan, 75, the spacemen who flew the Apollo 10 mission that orbited the Moon two months before Armstrong and Aldrin\u2019s landing, joked that his job had been to paint a white line through space to help the pair find their way.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone knew Neil could land on the Moon, but we didn\u2019t have a lot of confidence Neil could find it,\u201d he quipped, prompting a smile from Mr Armstrong, who shot back: \u201cI\u2019ve been listening to that for 40 years and this is not the time to change my position.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anniversary is being marked at Nasa centres. On Thursday, Johnson Space Centre in Houston will commemorate the 40 years since the Apollo 11 trio splashed back to Earth. At Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, from where the 1969-1972 Apollo missions blasted off, an exhibition of artefacts from the era has been unveiled.<\/p>\n

Inside the space centre\u2019s giant Vehicle Assembly Building, engineers have been toiling on the construction of Ares 1-X, the prototype of the rocket that Nasa plans to use to launch man back to the Moon by 2020. Its $360 million (\u00a3220 million) unmanned test flight is due this October.<\/p>\n

But military documents show that the US Air Force, which is responsible for safety at the Cape Canaveral range, believes that Ares \u2014 which partially draws on technology from the Apollo era \u2014 has design flaws that would condemn astronauts to death should the rocket explode, as their escape parachute would be melted.<\/p>\n

The Ares programme is now under review by a panel established by President Obama, which will also determine whether Nasa is right to head back to the Moon before striking out for Mars. The new Nasa chief, Charles Bolden, is expected to examine who knew what and when about Ares\u2019s problems as he launches into his first full week in the post.<\/p>\n

Professor John Logsdon, a space policy expert at the National Air and Space Museum, said: \u201cApollo showed us that we don\u2019t have to stay on this planet forever. It was the first step in a centuries-long process of moving humanity into the solar system.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we are going to continue that in the next few years. Apollo, when you look back, will be the first step in the evolution of humanity to a multi-planetary species.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Armstrong paid tribute yesterday to the spacemen who died paving the way for his 1969 Moonwalk as President Obama prepared to honour him and his Apollo 11 crewmates in Washington today for the 40th anniversary of their historic mission.   In a rare public appearance, the first man on the Moon spoke of the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n