{"id":2863,"date":"2012-08-25T22:04:56","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T22:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2863"},"modified":"2025-09-28T19:39:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:39:50","slug":"neil-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2863","title":{"rendered":"Neil Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certainly for anyone my age or thereabouts, a great American hero.<\/p>\n

First moonwalker Neil Armstrong's death at the age of 82 marks the passing of a "reluctant American hero," as well as the dimming of the Space Age's brightest moment.<\/a><\/p>\n

Armstrong has been immortalized in human history as the first human to
\nset foot on a celestial body beyond Earth. "That's one small step for a
\nman, one giant leap for mankind," he radioed back to Earth from the moon
\non July 20, 1969.<\/p>\n

******<\/p>\n

Armstrong was famous for staying out of fame's spotlight as much as
\nhe could. Some outsiders may have faulted him for his reticence, but not
\nhis fellow astronauts.<\/p>\n

"Most of our group in those days could
\nhave accomplished the challenge of the mission," Apollo 7 astronaut Walt
\nCunningham told NBC News' James Oberg in an email, "but I do not know a
\none that could have handled the resulting notoriety as well as Neil
\ndid." <\/p>\n

******<\/p>\n

On Aug. 7, just two days after his 82nd birthday, Armstrong underwent
\nquadruple-bypass heart surgery after flunking a medical stress test. At
\nthe time, his wife, Carol, reported that her husband was "doing great"<\/a> \u2014 but today the family said complications from that surgery led to his death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certainly for anyone my age or thereabouts, a great American hero. First moonwalker Neil Armstrong's death at the age of 82 marks the passing of a "reluctant American hero," as well as the dimming of the Space Age's brightest moment. Armstrong has been immortalized in human history as the first human to set foot on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8570,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863\/revisions\/8570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}