First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
by James R. Hansen
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Book Summary Information
Author: James R. HansenEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-10-03
ISBN: 1615525912
Number of pages: 784
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
Book Review: One of the best Astronaut books.Learned so much
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has got to be one of the best written Astronaut books. Mr Hansen did a great job. Its a thick long book but reads well.
I wasn't interested In Neil Armstrong's ancestry so the first two chapters to me were not interesting. After that the book is great and gets better and better. I'll just say a little on the book. Its much much more detailed with more interesting facts. We all know he was the first man on the Moon but he was very quite about it compared to Buzz Aldrin.You never hear anything from Neil Armstrong. Basically he had a job to do and he did it.
We see Neil's early days as a child and the religious influence from his mother. Neil was always a thinking person who would think about a problem first if he could rather than a spontaneous reaction type of person.
We see his love of reading, learning and building model planes at a young age leading to his wanting to fly. We see him saving for lessons to get his private pilot license before he can drive a car. Then we see him going to college to get an engineering degree and tied into the US Navy. He is a good student but not straight A. After completing college he fulfills his contract with the Navy and becomes a fighter pilot and is with the Screaming Eagles fighter squadron on the Essex aircraft carrier during the Korean War. Neil has many hours of combat experience and is highly decorated.
He becomes a jet test pilot and an experimental test pilot. He flies many many different high speed jets including the rocket plane the X15 and becomes a member of the 100,000 ft. plus club going well over mach 2. So many extreme challenges and dangerous assignments. He almost gets killed a few times and escapes death by seconds. He even flies once with Chuck Yeager and gets his jet stuck in the mud at a lake bed. Kind of embarrassing.
He is selected into NASA and goes up on Gemini V111 and survives a bad tumbling of the Gemini spacecraft after docking with another spacecraft.
My heart went out to Neil, Janet his wife and family when their 2 year old baby daughter dies of a brain tumor. Both Neil and Janet are crushed but somehow Neil continues with NASA. Also their home goes up in flames and Ed White their neighbor helps them get out of their burning house. Poor Ed White later dies in the Apollo 1 fire.
Neil is so level headed, the thinking persons astronaut and the sort of low key, non flaming personality that can get along with anyone. He goes through so much training and training. Finally he is selected by Deke Slayton the head astronaut to be the commander of Apollo 11 and be the first man on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin with a PHD from MIT wants to be the first man on the moon and INMO makes an a** of himself trying to persuade anyone who will listen why he should be first. The higher ups in NASA say no way we want Aldrin to be the first man on the moon as the first man will be a legend for a thousand years like Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. They wanted a level headed, non assuming mild mannered personality to be the first man on the moon. Armstrong is to be first man.
We see the landing. Neil gets out first followed by Buzz. Neil's famous statement from the moon " A small step for man and a giant leap for mankind". Neil may have forgot to put the a between for and man. This statement will last a thousand years. Both Neil and Buzz do experiments and collect rock and dust samples. Neil takes pictures of Buzz but both get distracted from a talk with President Nixon and later Buzz forgets to take pictures of Neil on the moon. The only picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon is the one with Neil in the faceplate of Buzz. NO PICTURES....terrible. They do have video of Neil stepping on the moon and Neil in the shadows.
Someone puts a wreath on President Kennedy's tomb saying " Mr President the Eagle has landed". I shed a tear on that one.
Its explained why the flag looks like its blowing. Of course there is no air on the moon. Some conspiracy idiots still think we never landed on the moon. Its explained Neil and Buzz could not get the mast for the flag fully extended and the flag straight out and as a result the flag was partially bent and looks like its blowing. Plus they have a lot of problems getting the flag mast to stay deep enough in the fine moon dust.
They almost forget to leave a disk with Earth leaders signatures and best wishes, and another memento of the two Russian Cosmonauts that died and Gus Grissom, Ed White and Chaffee who perished on Apollo 1, but in the last minutes they do leave it. One of the last things Buzz sees out the window as they leave the moon is the flag falling down.
We see Mike Collins the Columbia pilot who waits in lunar orbit for Neil and Buzz to launch from the moon and rendezvous with the Columbia. Collins can't land and save them. If the Eagle doesn't lift off and get into lunar orbit Neil and Buzz are dead men.
Such courage and determination by Neil, Buzz and Mike Collins. All heroes. There is much more great passages later on in the book as well as excellent pictures. This has got to be one of the best astronaut books. Mr Hansen did a great job. I learned so much about Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts, ground control members and about Neil's family. An enjoyable, exciting learning experience. Excellent book 5 stars.
Summary of First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch thirty-eight-year-old American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person to step on the surface of another heavenly body. Perhaps no words in human history became better known than those few he uttered at that historic moment. In a penetrating exploration of American hero worship, Hansen addresses the complex legacy of the First Man, as an astronaut and an individual.Military Books
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