Neil Armstrong

He underwent a bypass surgery to relieve blocked coronary arteries on August 7, 2012. A few days later, on August 25, he breathed his last.

Neil Armstrong was the eldest of the three children born to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel. Since his father was employed as an auditor for the government, much of his early life was spent travelling from one city to the other.

At the age of five, he experienced his first ever airplane flight. This left an indelible mark on the young lad and set the tone for his life.

Academically, he attained his formal education from Blume High School. Alongside, he took flying lessons and earned his student light certificate at the age of 16. He was an active member of the Boy Scouts and soon went up the rank to become Eagle Scout.

A year later in 1947, he enrolled himself at Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering. He was sponsored by the Holloway Plan, under which it was customary for him to serve three years of service in the U.S. Navy,

He was called for the service in 1949, wherein he was asked to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training. After about 18 months of rigorous training, he finally was qualified as a Naval Aviator on August 1950.

In 1955, with an aim to become an experimental research test pilot, he applied for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). However, due to no open positions, his application was forwarded to the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, where he began working.

He moved back to NACA after a couple of months. His first assignment was to pilot chase planes during releases of experimental aircraft from modified bombers.

During his seventeen years of service for National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA (formerly known as NACA), he served in various capacities including as an engineer, test pilot, astronaut and administrator.

As a research pilot, he tested numerous high-speed aircraft, including the X-15, which could reach a top speed of 4,000 miles per hour. Overall, he flew about 200 different models of aircrafts, including jets, rockets, helicopter and gliders.

Year 1958, marked his selection in the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. Two years later, he was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar. In 1962, he finally made it in the top seven pilot engineers who would fly space plane.

With his appointment as an astronaut, he became NASA’s first civilian to fly in space. However, the most spectacular achievement of his life was undertaking the Apollo 11 mission, which was the first manned mission to Moon. He became the first man ever to walk on the Moon surface, which lasted for a little over two hours.