Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Eagle Has Landed

Neil Armstrong passed away yesterday. He was 82.

In an age where the biggest benefit of knowing facts and dates is for getting points in games like Trivia Pursuit, we often take for granted and fail to fully comprehend the meaning of these events or their subsequent benefits. The technical commitment to achieving a moonwalk resulted in innumerable gizmos and gadgets that are now ho hum to us. Improvements in miniaturization was just one of the many requirements for accomplishing the Columbia endeavor. But there have been countless overall benefits in the fields of health and medicine, transportation, public safety, consumer goods, computer technology and industrial productivity.

My first blog entry in the summer of 2007 was titled "One Small Step for a Man, One Giant Leap..." Neil Armstrong's declaration 38 years earlier was evidently still rattling around inside my head. These were words that reverberated throughout the world. A man, a human being like one of us, had set foot on the moon, a true rocket man. And there were no Golden Arches there yet.

To read more, Dan Vergano's USA Today story is a concise, nicely done tribute. Neil Armstrong: A quiet hero who left his mark on history

Urban Myth: NASA developed teflon for the space program.

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