While most people are familiar with Neil A. Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, most people don’t actually know much about him.

Neil A. Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on August 5, 1930. At the age of 19, he became a naval aviator, serving from 1949 to 1952. He then joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and spent the next 17 years of his life as an engineer, astronaut, test pilot, and administrator for the NACA, now NASA.

Armstrong became an official astronaut in 1962. In 1966 he piloted the Gemini 8 mission, performing the first successful docking of two vehicles in outer space. Then he became the spacecraft commander for the Apollo 11 mission, where he landed a spaceship on the moon and became the first man to walk on the moon.

After these two successful missions, Armstrong became the Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. He managed NASA research aeronautic technology work, joined many committees, and was given multiple awards by several countries. On August 25, 2012, he passed away at the age of 82.

Even though Armstrong did most of his work before the 2000s, he is still a very important figure in the modern era. Jonathan Lau said, “Growing up, I always wanted to be an astronaut, so for me Neil Armstrong was a really important person that I looked up to. I read a lot about him as a kid because I wanted to be just like him when I grew up”.

Armstrong was also a role model in Nicole Go’s life. “I’m very interested in science, especially outer space,” she said. “It’s hard to even imagine how NASA and Neil Armstrong were able to accomplish so much in only the 1960s. I think this would be an interesting subject for us to learn about in physics class.”