RIP Neil Arstrong

[Rainbow Dash]

This is a page for people to post what they think about Neil's death today.

Hopefully the government will think about NASA and give mroe funding for future missions.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/us/neil-armstrong-obit/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Edited August 25, 2012 by Rainbow Dash

[kodemunkey]

Really? I'm gobsmacked. I just wanted to post an image that was co-incidentally taken at the same time that i found out he died.

[Exovian]

I find it disconcerting that we may soon live in a word where no one who walked on the moon are still alive. Not only are our greatest accomplishments behind us, we may soon lose those who brought us there...

[Letum]

Here was a man that will outlive us all, but lets spare a thought for those who knew and remember the man and not just his achievements.

[MrMadGameplay]

It's a terrible shame but even the greatest of people have to die some day unfortunately, he will have died a proud man.

[Jimbow]

He must be one of the most inspirational man in human history. Going where no one has gone before. Only if everyone could live up to what he did.

[squidflakes]

There was a bar here in Clear Lake called The Outpost. In the 60's it went from a broken down stump of a shack sitting on the edge of a sweltering Texas fishing town to a broken down stump of a shack stuffed to the brim with iconic men and women who defined a generation with their amazing achievements.

The Outpost is gone now, torn down in the name of progress and The Webster Bypass, an elevated road designed to make it easier for the dwindling numbers of NASA employees to commute to work every day.

When I was a kid though, it was a magical place, its walls were plastered with maps and charts and pictures of the bravest of the brave. Heroes who challenged the highest frontiers then came back to share a drink and stories with those of us who could only watch it teary-eyed awe. They would saunter in and smile broadly, grab a seat and pour from aged plastic pitchers and start every story with "Son, did I ever tell you about the time we..."

And then nothing else in the world mattered. The stories were compelling, amazing, mind-numbing, and occasionally exaggerated for laughs. They weren't all about space as these men had lives on the ground, but steering the conversation back toward "What was it like?" was easy enough.

I think this is hitting me extra hard today because it seems like all of the men I met and idolized in those golden days of youthful summers are leaving for their next adventure and I'll never get to hear those stories. When I wasn't in Clear Lake I lived in Melbourne with my mom, a scant few miles from Cape Canaveral or Kennedy depending on when and where you were born, and every time I go back the monumental rockets that lined US-1 are disappearing, being taken down from their static displays in the name of cost savings don't you know.

Still, amid all of this, I stay hopeful because that's what the space program represents. Hope.

Hope that we'll leave our cradle and venture out to the stars.

Hope that we'll be able to solve the problems of poverty and hunger, war and disease, and maybe even despair itself.

Hope that one day, our sons and daughters will look down on this world from orbit and remember us fondly, their ancestors who so crudely hobbled to where they effortlessly spend every day.