Tuesday, August 03, 2010

An upcoming Happy Birthday to Neil Armstrong!

Neil Armstrong, one of history's most courageous explorers (and one of the most modest) turns 80 on August 5th. Armstrong has said he thought his work on fly-by-wire control systems for aircraft was a bigger contribution than his lunar landing. He DID make a major contribution to a technology now used by thousands of aircraft the world over, and he should be remembered for that, but nothing will eclipse his calm, professional leadership of the greatest voyage of discovery in modern times.

"The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited." - Neil Armstrong

2 comments:

DK said...

Wow, he worked on fly-by-wire? I never knew that.. Thanks for the post.

Matt Bille said...

Armstrong was instrumental in the development of FBW. The book The First Man has a good account of this. Thanks for commenting.