Who Was Neil Armstrong - 尼尔·阿姆斯特朗 Chapter 6 Astronaut Neil Armstrong

In 1962, NASA decided 1 to bring more astronauts into the space program. NASA especially wanted test pilots and men with engineering backgrounds.

Neil Armstrong met all the qualifications. He was less than thirty-five years old, in perfect health, and shorter than six feet tall. (Taller men would be too cramped 2 inside a small space capsule.) In addition, Neil was a highly skilled pilot and an engineer who knew all about the mechanics 3 of planes and flight. Last of all, he was a man. Women were not accepted into the U.S. astronaut program until 1978. (The U.S.S.R. sent a woman cosmonaut into space in 1963.)

Neil went back and forth 4 about whether to apply. As a test pilot, he was used to flying planes all by himself, being in charge, and making all the decisions during a flight. As an astronaut, he would be inside a spacecraft guided mainly by automatic controls. The top engineers at the NASA command center in Houston would be in charge of every flight. But the dream of reaching the moon was a powerful one. And perhaps Neil thought a new challenge would help take his mind off the loss of his daughter. In the end, he sent in his application. It actually arrived a week after the deadline, but evidently that didn’t matter to NASA. On September 17, 1962, nine men were chosen.

Neil Armstrong was one of them. And suddenly he—and the rest of his family—was famous!

The Armstrongs moved to El Lago, Texas, near the NASA space center in Houston. They had a new house that looked exactly like all the other houses in the neighborhood. It had a swimming pool in the backyard and—best of all—air-conditioning! Summers in Texas would have been very unpleasant without it. All their neighbors were in the space program, too. There were lots of backyard barbecues with the other astronaut families. After Muffie’s recent death, it was a much happier time for Neil, Jan, and their sons. (Mark Stephen Armstrong was born in the spring of 1963.)

The nine new astronauts went through a long and thorough 5 training period. NASA had to accomplish many tasks in space before being ready to send men to the moon.

On the face of it, some of the training exercises seemed to have nothing to do with space flight. For example, soon after becoming an astronaut, Neil was sent to the steamy jungle of Panama. Why?

The reason was simple. On returning from the moon, a spacecraft might crash anywhere on Earth—a mountaintop, the desert, or the jungle. Astronauts had to be able to survive until rescued. So Neil and a fellow astronaut spent several days in the rain forest in a small tent with just a survival 6 kit 7. They ate whatever they could find—even if that meant bugs 8, roots, and worms!

Being an astronaut became Neil’s life. It was much more than a job. According to Jan, the Apollo mission “consumed” her husband. And the training hardly ever let up—lasting twelve or more hours a day.

In a spacecraft, there is no gravity. Everything is weightless and floats unless it is anchored down. NASA had a special plane in which Neil and the eight others could experience weightlessness for short periods of time. Its nickname 9 was the “Vomit Comet 10.” It would dive down from a high altitude, then climb up steeply for another dive. It was like being on a roller coaster. At the very top of each climb, the astronauts would experience weightlessness for about thirty seconds.

Due to his demanding job, Neil spent less time at home. One night he arrived home very late. Neil hadn’t been asleep for very long when both he and Jan woke up. The house was hot, very hot. And it wasn’t because the air-conditioning was broken. The Armstrongs’ house was on fire!

Ed White, an astronaut who lived next door, jumped over the fence between the two houses. He got out the hoses 11 even before the fire engines arrived. No one was hurt, but the Armstrongs’ house had to be rebuilt. Many photographs of little Muffie were lost in the fire as well.

Neil also had to spend a lot of time away from home giving speeches around the country. It was his least favorite part of the job. But people needed to understand the importance of the space program and why such vast amounts of money were needed for it. And of course people loved meeting the astronauts. They were young, bright, attractive men. They put a human face on the space program.