Before the Moon

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Before the Moon: Neil Armstrong's early career

[bNeil Armstrong will be forever known as the first person to walk on the Moon. But less well known are his early exploits as a test pilot. Armstrong risked life and limb in a variety of experimental vehicles before he became an astronaut - a career that very nearly didn't happen.[/b]

In the centre of a large, bright hangar at California's Edwards Air Force Base was a large cross made of two iron girders balanced on a universal truck joint.

Six thrusters on the ends of the cross's limbs shot spurts of compressed nitrogen every time Neil Armstrong, sitting in a makeshift cockpit on the cross's forward end, moved the control stick in his left hand.

It might not have looked it in 1956, but this barebones simulator was the future Moonwalker's first step into space.

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[ChrLzs]

Great article! Neil was an amazing character - modest and assuming, yet incredibly talented and virtually fearless.. One of my favorite Neil stories is that surrounding his safe ejection from the LLTV when it lost stability. The LLTV (and it's predecessor, LLRV) was an amazing device - the astronauts needed to practice for the lunar landing process, and the nearest they could achieve on Earth was this remarkable 'flying platform'. The Earth has two major 'problems' that they had to deal with - 6x more gravity (so landing on the moon was a much slower and gentler process) and an atmosphere, with winds and buffeting effects that were completely absent on the moon..

So the LLTV had to be much more powerful, and was subject to being disturbed even by light winds and even its own updraft/downdraft.... For all that it was incredibly successful and reliable - there were over 790 flights and just 3 'incidents', none of which involved a fatality, let alone an injury.... More about it here..

Anyway, one of those incidents was on one of Neil's many, many test flights.. All went well initially, but then there was a major propellant leak and the vehicle began to lose power to some of the thrusters and it tipped sideways.. Neil tried to keep it under control but when it was clear that it was 'going over', he ejected just a few seconds before the vehicle crashed. Neil landed safely, and then calmly returned to his office to write up his report...

Here's the incident (no sound was recorded):

A little over a year later, Armstrong walked on the Moon.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Great article! Neil was an amazing character - modest and assuming, yet incredibly talented and virtually fearless..

Armstrong, rather like Gagarin before him, was the right man to be first not because of his skills as a pilot or an astronaut (they all had that) but because of his likable personality. Both were good ambassadors for their countries.

The only difference is that Gagarin was picked for his flight partly for that reason, whereas Armstrong was the next in line.

In Deke Slayton's autobiography he actually states that had Gus Grissom not died in the Apollo 1 fire then he would have selected him to be the commander of the first landing attempt. In many ways Neil Armstrong became an accidental global hero.