Since the early 1980s, Armstrong

Since the early 1980s, Armstrong has been the subject of a hoax saying that he converted to Islam after hearing the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, while walking on the moon. The Indonesian singer Suhaemi wrote a song called "Gema Suara Adzan di Bulan" ("The Resonant Sound of the Call to Prayer on the Moon")HP Pavilion DV6-1105TX Battery which described Armstrong's conversion; the song was discussed widely in various Jakarta news outlets in 1983.^[128] Other similar hoax stories were seen in Egypt and Malaysia. In March 1983, the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a global message to Muslims saying that Armstrong "has not converted to Islam".HP Pavilion DV6-1106AU Battery However, the hoax was not completely quieted; it surfaced occasionally for the next three decades. A part of the confusion stems from the similarity between Armstrong's American residence in Lebanon, Ohio, and the country Lebanon which has a majority population of Muslims. Armstrong underwent bypass surgery on August 7, 2012, to relieve blocked coronary arteries. HP Pavilion DV6-1106AX Battery He died on August 25, in Cincinnati, Ohio, after complications resulting from the cardiovascular procedure. After his death, Armstrong was described, in a statement released by the White House, as "among the greatest of American heroes—not just of his time, but of all time";the White House statement said that Armstrong had carried the aspirations of the United States' citizens and that he had delivered "a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten." HP Pavilion DV6-1106TX Battery His family released a statement describing Armstrong as a "reluctant American hero [who had] served his nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut ... While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, HP Pavilion DV6-1107AU Battery to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves. For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink." HP Pavilion DV6-1107AX Battery This prompted many responses, including the Twitter hashtag "#WinkAtTheMoon". Armstrong's colleague on the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin, said that he was "deeply saddened by the passing. I know I am joined by millions of others in mourning the passing of a true American hero and the best pilot I ever knew. HP Pavilion DV6-1107EL Battery I had truly hoped that on July 20th, 2019, Neil, Mike and I would be standing together to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of our moon landing. Regrettably, this is not to be."^[138][139] Apollo 11 Command Module pilot Michael Collins said, of Armstrong, "He was the best, and I will miss him terribly." HP Pavilion DV6-1107TX Battery NASA AdministratorCharles Bolden said that: "As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own". A tribute was held in Armstrong's honor on September 13 at Washington National Cathedral, whose Space Window depicts theApollo 11 mission and holds a sliver of moon rock amid its stained-glass panels. HP Pavilion DV6-1108AU Battery In attendance were Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmates, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin; Eugene A. Cernan, the Apollo 17 mission commander and last man to walk on the moon; and former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. In a eulogy, Charles Bolden said, "Neil will always be remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own, HP Pavilion DV6-1108AX Battery but it was the courage, grace, and humility he displayed throughout this life that lifted him above the stars." Eugene Cernan recalled Armstrong's low-fuel approach to the moon: "When the gauge says empty we all know there's a gallon or two left in the tank!" Diana Krallsang the song "Fly Me to the Moon". Michael Collins led prayers. Aldrin and Collins left immediately after the event. HP Pavilion DV6-1108CA Battery TheApollo 15 commander, David Scott, spoke to the press; he recalled the Gemini 8 mission with Armstrong when he spoke, possibly for the first time, about an incident in which glue spilled on his harness and prevented it from locking correctly minutes before the hatch had to be sealed or the mission aborted. HP Pavilion DV6-1108TX Battery Armstrong then called on back-up pilot Pete Conrad to solve the problem, which he did, to continue the mission without stopping the countdown clock. "That happened because Neil Armstrong was a team player, he always worked on behalf of the team."On September 14, Armstrong's cremated remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean during a burial-at-sea ceremony aboard the USS Philippine Sea. HP Pavilion DV6-1109AU Battery Armstrong received many honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Sylvanus Thayer Award, the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association, and theCongressional Gold Medal. HP Pavilion DV6-1109AX Battery The lunar crater Armstrong, 31 mi (50 km) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong^[146] are named in his honor. Armstrong was also inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.Armstrong and his Apollo 11 crewmates were the 1999 recipients of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution. HP Pavilion DV6-1109TX Battery Throughout the United States, there are more than a dozen elementary, middle and high schools named in his honor,^[149] and many places around the world have streets, buildings, schools, and other places named for Armstrong and/or Apollo.In 1969, folk songwriter and singer John Stewart recorded "Armstrong", a tribute to Armstrong and his first steps on the moon. HP Pavilion DV6-1110EC Battery Purdue University announced in October 2004 that its new engineering building would be named Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering in his honor;^[151]the building cost $53.2 million and was dedicated on October 27, 2007, during a ceremony at which Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue Astronauts. HP Pavilion DV6-1110EG Battery In 1971, Armstrong was awarded the Sylvanus Thayer Award by the United States Military Academy at West Point for his service to the country.The Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum is located in his hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, although it has no official ties to Armstrong and the airport in New Knoxville where he took his first flying lessons is named for him. HP Pavilion DV6-1110EH Battery Armstrong's authorized biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, was published in 2005. For many years, Armstrong turned down biography offers from authors such as Stephen Ambrose and James A. Michener, but agreed to work with James R. Hansen after reading one of Hansen's other biographies. HP Pavilion DV6-1110EJ Battery In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Armstrong was ranked as the #1 most popular space hero.^[156] The press often asked Armstrong for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, Armstrong said that a manned mission to Mars will be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s: "I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, HP Pavilion DV6-1110EL Battery they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo [space program] in 1961." In 2010, he made a rare public criticism of the decision to cancel the Ares 1 launch vehicle and the Constellation moon landing program.In an open public letter also signed by Apollo veterans Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan, he noted, HP Pavilion DV6-1110EO Battery "For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature".HP Pavilion DV6-1110EQ Battery Armstrong had also publicly recalled his initial concerns about the Apollo 11 mission, when he had believed there was only a 50% chance of landing on the moon. "I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful", he later said. On November 18, 2010, at age eighty, Armstrong said in a speech during the Science & Technology Summit in The Hague, HP Pavilion DV6-1110ES Battery Netherlands, that he would offer his services as commander on a mission to Mars if he were asked. In September 2012, the U.S. Navy announced that the first Armstrong-class Auxiliary General Oceanographic Research (AGOR) ship will be named "R/V Neil Armstrong". The ship (T-AGOR 27, HP Pavilion DV6-1110ET Battery currently under construction) will be a modern oceanographic research platform capable of supporting a wide range of oceanographic research activities conducted by academic groups. Gemini 8 (officially Gemini VIII) was the sixth manned spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. The mission conducted the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. HP Pavilion DV6-1110EZ Battery spacecraft which threatened the lives of the astronauts and required immediate abort of the mission. The crew was returned to Earth safely. The only other time this happened was on the flight of Apollo 13. It was the twelfth manned American flight and the twenty-second manned spaceflight of all time (including X-15 flights over 100 kilometres (62 mi)). HP Pavilion DV6-1110SS Battery Command pilot Neil Armstrong's flight marked the second time a U.S. civilian flew into space (Joseph Albert Walker became the first US civilian on X-15 Flight 90^[1][2]). Armstrong had resigned his commission in the United States Naval Reserve in 1960. The Soviet Union had launched the first civilian, Valentina Tereshkova (also the first woman) aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963. HP Pavilion DV6-1110TX Battery Five months earlier, NASA had tried to launch an Agena along with Gemini 6, but the Agena blew up on launch and the Gemini launch was postponed. This time everything worked perfectly. The Agena put itself into a 298-kilometer circular orbit and oriented itself to the correct attitude for the docking. HP Pavilion DV6-1111TX Battery The Gemini spacecraft itself was launched into a 160 by 272 kilometer orbit by a modified Titan II at 10:41:02 a.m. EST. heir first burn was at 1 hour and 34 minutes into the mission, when they lowered their apogee with a 5 second burn. The second burn was at apogee of the second orbit. HP Pavilion DV6-1112TX Battery This time they raised their perigee by adding 15 meters per second to their speed. Their third burn made sure that they were in the same orbital plane. This time they were turned 90° from their direction of travel and made a burn of 8 meters per second while they were over the Pacific. HP Pavilion DV6-1113TX Battery They then had to make an 0.8 meter per second burn after the ground controller realised that they were slightly off due to problems with the thrusters not shutting off properly. They found at 332 kilometres (206 mi) from the Agena that the radar had acquired the target. At 3 hours, 48 minutes and 10 seconds into the mission they performed another burn that put them in a circular orbit 28 kilometres (17 mi) below the Agena. HP Pavilion DV6-1114TX Battery They first sighted it when they were 140 kilometres (87 mi) away and at 102 kilometres (63 mi) they turned the computer onto automatic. After several small burns they were 46 meters away and with no relative velocity. After 30 minutes of visually inspecting the Agena to make sure that it had not been damaged by the launch, they were given the go for docking. HP Pavilion DV6-1115EE Battery Armstrong started slowly (8 centimeters per second) to move towards the Agena. In a matter of minutes, the Agena's docking latches clicked and a green light indicated that the docking had been successfully completed. "Flight, we are docked! Yes, it's really a smoothie," Scott radioed to the ground. HP Pavilion DV6-1115EI Battery There was some suspicion on the ground that the Agena attitude system was acting up and might not have the correct program stored in it (this suspicion was subsequently found to be incorrect). Just before they went off contact with the ground, the crew of Gemini 8 were informed that if anything strange were to happen, they were to turn off the Agena. HP Pavilion DV6-1115ES Battery After the Agena began execution of its stored command program, which instructed the Agena to turn the combined spacecraft 90° to the right, Scott noticed that they were in a roll. Armstrong used the Gemini's Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) to stop the roll, but the moment he stopped using the thrusters, it started again. HP Pavilion DV6-1115ET Battery They immediately turned off the Agena and this seemed to stop the problem for a few minutes. Then suddenly it started again. Scott noticed that the Gemini attitude fuel had dropped to 30% indicating that it was a problem on their own spacecraft. They would have to undock. HP Pavilion DV6-1115EZ Battery After transferring control of the Agena back to the ground they undocked and with a long burst of translation thrusters moved away from the Agena. It was at that point that the Gemini spacecraft began to roll even faster, and approached one revolution per second. HP Pavilion DV6-1115TX Battery The astronauts were now in danger of impaired vision and loss of consciousness due to the violent motion. At this point Armstrong shut down the OAMS and used the Re-entry Control System reaction control system (RCS) to stop the spin. After steadying the spacecraft, they tested each OAMS thruster in turn and found that Number 8 had stuck on. HP Pavilion DV6-1116EL Battery Mission rules dictated that the flight be terminated once the RCS had been fired for any reason, so Gemini VIII prepared for an emergency landing. It was decided to let the spacecraft reenter one orbit later so that it could land in a place that could be reached by the secondary recovery forces. HP Pavilion DV6-1116TX Battery The original plan was for Gemini 8 to land in the Atlantic, but that was supposed to be three days later. So USS Leonard F. Mason started to steam towards the new landing site 800 kilometers east of Okinawa and 1,000 kilometers south of Yokosuka, Japan. Most of the reentry occurred over Asia, beyond the range of NASA tracking stations. HP Pavilion DV6-1117EL Battery Planes were also dispatched and the pilot of one (Captain Les Schneider, USAF), managed to see the spacecraft as it descended precisely on time and target. Three pararescuers jumped from the plane and attached the flotation collar to the capsule. The three pararescuers (Air Force PJs) were A/2C Glenn M. Moore; HP Pavilion DV6-1117ES Battery A/1C Eldridge M. Neal; and S/Sgt Larry D. Huyett.^[5] Three hours after splashdown, the Mason had the spacecraft on board.Had Gemini 8 landed in the western Atlantic Ocean (the scheduled recovery area) as planned, it would have been recovered by the U.S. Navy Atlantic Recovery Fleet's prime recovery ship, the carrier USS Boxer. HP Pavilion DV6-1117TX Battery During this time the Wasp (the usual Atlantic Fleet Gemini recovery carrier) was in dry dock for repairs. For several days after the Gemini reentry, the Agena vehicle was tested by a variety of maneuvers initiated by NASA ground control in Houston until its fuel and power were exhausted. HP Pavilion DV6-1118EL Battery The Gemini 8 mission was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense with 9,655 personnel, 96 aircraft, and 16 ships. Gemini 8's troubles became apparent just as the major television networks in the United States (and Canada) were about to begin prime-time programming on the East Coast. HP Pavilion DV6-1118TX Battery CBS went on the air first, just before 7:30 P.M. EST and remained on the air continuously until after splashdown; ABC interrupted Batman (airing from 7:30 to 8 P.M. EST) with bulletins before cutting the program off; and NBC cut-off The Virginian shortly after 7:30. All three networks stayed on the air until the spacecraft had splashed down and the astronauts were safe. HP Pavilion DV6-1119EL Battery In Canada, NHL On CTV broke into coverage of an National Hockey League game between the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs several times to report on the crisis, and once the game ended, simulcast CBS News coverage of the crisis, joining just prior to re-entry and splashdown. HP Pavilion DV6-1119TX Battery All four of these networks (especially CBS, ABC, CTV) received angry calls from viewers missing their favorite shows, but the biggest irony was that CBS had pre-empted a fictional space adventure series, Lost In Space, to cover the real-life space emergency. No conclusive reason for the thruster malfunction was found. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EC Battery The most probable cause was determined to be an electrical short, most likely due to a static electricity discharge. Power still flowed to the thruster, even when it was switched off. To prevent recurrence of this problem, spacecraft designs were changed so each thruster would have an isolated circuit. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EF Battery The Deputy Administrator of NASA, Dr. Robert Seamans, was attending a celebratory dinner sponsored by the Goddard Space Flight Center, at which Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the guest speaker, when the problem arose. The incident inspired Seamans to review NASA's problem investigation procedures, modeled after military crash investigations, HP Pavilion DV6-1120EG Battery and on April 14, 1966, to formalize a new procedure in Management Instruction 8621.1, Mission Failure Investigation Policy And Procedures. This gave the Deputy Administrator the option of performing independent investigations of major failures, beyond those failure investigations for which the various Program Office officials were normally responsible. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EH Battery It declared: "It is NASA policy to investigate and document the causes of all major mission failures which occur in the conduct of its space and aeronautical activities and to take appropriate corrective actions as a result of the findings and recommendations."Seamans first invoked this new procedure immediately following the fatal Apollo 1 spacecraft fire on January 27, 1967. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EI Battery It was also invoked after the next critical in-flight failure, which occurred on the Apollo 13 lunar mission in April 1970.McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, the Gemini spacecraft prime contractor, also changed its procedures. Prior to the accident, McDonnell's top engineers would be at Cape Kennedy for the launch, then fly to Mission Control in Houston, Texas for the rest of the mission. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EJ Battery The problem occurred while they were en route, so it was decided to keep McDonnell engineers in Houston for the entire mission. The flight patch for the mission shows the whole spectrum of objectives that were hoped to have been accomplished on Gemini 8. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EK Battery The text at the bottom is composed of the zodiacal symbol for Gemini,  , and the Roman numeral for eight, VIII. The two stars are Castor and Pollux, which are in the constellation of Gemini, and are refracted through a prism to provide the spectrum. Armstrong and Scott both designed the flight patch. HP Pavilion DV6-1120EL Battery,HP Pavilion DV6-1120EO Battery, HP Pavilion DV6-1120EQ Battery

Based on the normal crew rotation scheme

Based on the normal crew rotation scheme, Armstrong would command Apollo 11. To attempt to give the astronauts experience with how the LM would fly on its final landing descent, NASA commissioned Bell Aircraft to build two Lunar Landing Research Vehicles, later augmented with three Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTV). ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050EI Battery} Nicknamed the "Flying Bedsteads", they simulated the Moon's one-sixth of Earth's gravity by using a turbofan engine to support the remaining five-sixths of the craft's weight. On May 6, 1968, about 100 feet (30 m) above the ground, Armstrong's controls started to degrade and the LLTV began banking. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050EN Battery} He ejected safely (later analysis suggested that if he had ejected 0.5 seconds later, his parachute would not have opened in time). His only injury was from biting his tongue. Even though he was nearly killed, Armstrong maintained that without the LLRV and LLTV, the lunar landings would not have been successful, as they gave commanders valuable experience in the behavior of lunar landing craft. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050EO Battery} After Armstrong served as backup commander for Apollo 8, Slayton offered him the post of commander of Apollo 11 on December 23, 1968, as Apollo 8 orbited the Moon.In a meeting that was not made public until the publication of Armstrong's biography in 2005, Slayton told him that although the planned crew was Armstrong as commander, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050EP Battery} lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins, he was offering the chance to replace Aldrin with Jim Lovell. After thinking it over for a day, Armstrong told Slayton he would stick with Aldrin, as he had no difficulty working with him and thought Lovell deserved his own command. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050ET Battery} Replacing Aldrin with Lovell would have made Lovell the Lunar Module Pilot, unofficially the lowest ranked member, and Armstrong could not justify placing Lovell, the commander of Gemini 12, in the number 3 position of the crew. A March 1969 meeting between Slayton, George Low, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050US Battery} Bob Gilruth, and Chris Kraft determined that Armstrong would be the first person on the Moon, in some part because NASA management saw Armstrong as a person who did not have a large ego.^[60] A press conference held on April 14, 1969 gave the design of the LM cabin as the reason for Armstrong's being first; ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1053CL Battery} the hatch opened inwards and to the right, making it difficult for the lunar module pilot, on the right-hand side, to egress first. Slayton added, "Secondly, just on a pure protocol basis, I figured the commander ought to be the first guy out. . . . I changed it as soon as I found they had the time line that showed that. Bob Gilruth approved my decision." ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1055EE Battery} At the time of their meeting, the four men did not know about the hatch issue. The first knowledge of the meeting outside the small group came when Kraft wrote his 2001 autobiography.^[62] On July 16, 1969, Armstrong received a crescent moon carved out of Styrofoam from the pad leader, Guenter Wendt, who described it as a key to the Moon. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1056EL Battery} In return, Armstrong gave Wendt a ticket for a "space taxi" "good between two planets". During the Apollo 11 launch, Armstrong's heart reached a top rate of 110 beats per minute.^[64] He found the first stage to be the loudest—much noisier than the Gemini 8 Titan II launch—and the Apollo CSM was relatively roomy compared to the Gemini capsule. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1058EL Battery} This ability to move around was suspected to be the reason why none of the Apollo 11 crew suffered from space sickness, while members of previous crews did. Armstrong was especially happy, as he had been prone to motion sickness as a child and could experience nausea after doing long periods of aerobatics. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1060EL Battery} The objective of Apollo 11 was to land safely rather than to touch down with precision on a particular spot. Three minutes into the lunar descent burn, Armstrong noted that craters were passing about two seconds too early, which meant the Eagle would probably touch down beyond the planned landing zone by several miles. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1060EO Battery} As the Eagle's landing radaracquired the surface, several computer error alarms appeared. The first was a code 1202 alarm, and even with their extensive training, neither Armstrong nor Aldrin was aware of what this code meant. They promptly received word from CAPCOM in Houston that the alarms were not a concern; ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1060ES Battery} the 1202 and 1201 alarms were caused by an executive overflow in the lunar module computer. As described by Buzz Aldrin in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, the overflow condition was caused by his own counter-checklist choice of leaving the docking radar on during the landing process, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1060EV Battery} so the computer had to process unnecessary radar data and did not have enough time to execute all tasks, dropping lower-priority ones. Aldrin stated that he did so with the objective of facilitating re-docking with the CM should an abort become necessary, not realizing that it would cause the overflow condition. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1062EL Battery} When Armstrong noticed they were heading towards a landing area which he believed was unsafe, he took over manual control of the LM, and attempted to find an area which seemed safer, taking longer than expected, and longer than most simulations had taken.For this reason, there was concern from mission control that the LM was running low on fuel. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1066EL Battery} Upon landing, Aldrin and Armstrong believed they had about 40 seconds worth of fuel left, including the 20 seconds worth of fuel which had to be saved in the event of an abort.^[69] During training, Armstrong had landed the LLTV with less than 15 seconds left on several occasions, and he was also confident the LM could survive a straight-down fall from 50 feet (15 m) if needed. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1068EL Battery} Analysis after the mission showed that at touchdown there were 45 to 50 seconds of propellant burn time left.The landing on the surface of the moon occurred at 20:17:39 UTC on July 20, 1969.^[71] When a sensor attached to the legs of the still hovering Lunar Module made lunar contact, a panel light inside the LM lit up and Aldrin called out, "Contact light." ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1070EO Battery} As the LM settled on the surface Aldrin then said, "Okay. Engine stop," and Armstrong said, "Shutdown." The first words Armstrong intentionally spoke to Mission Control and the world from the lunar surface were, "Houston,Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Aldrin and Armstrong celebrated with a brisk handshake and ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1080EL Battery} pat on the back before quickly returning to the checklist of tasks needed to ready the lunar module for liftoff from the Moon should an emergency unfold during the first moments on the lunar surface. During the critical landing, the only message from Houston was "30 seconds", meaning the amount of fuel left. When Armstrong had confirmed touch-down, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1080EQ Battery} Houston expressed its worries during the manual landing as "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again". Although the official NASA flight plan called for a crew rest period before extra-vehicular activity, Armstrong requested that the EVA be moved to earlier in the evening, Houston time. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1080ES Battery} Once Armstrong and Aldrin were ready to go outside, Eagle was depressurized, the hatch was opened and Armstrong made his way down the ladder first. At the bottom of the ladder, Armstrong said "I'm going to step off the LEM now" (referring to the Apollo Lunar Module). He then turned and set his left boot on the surface at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1090EO Battery} then spoke the famous words "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong had decided on this statement following a train of thought that he had had after launch and during the hours after landing.The broadcast did not have the "a" before "man", rendering the phrase a contradiction (as man in such use is synonymous with mankind). ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1090ES Battery} NASA and Armstrong insisted for years that static had obscured the "a", with Armstrong stating he would never make such a mistake, but after repeated listenings to recordings, Armstrong admitted he must have dropped the "a".Armstrong later said he "would hope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand that it was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually have been".^{HP Pavilion DV6-1099EF Battery} It has since been claimed that acoustic analysis of the recording reveals the presence of the missing "a";^[76][79] Peter Shann Ford, an Australia-based computer programmer, conducted a digital audio analysis and claims that Armstrong did, in fact, say "a man", but the "a" was inaudible due to the limitations of communications technology of the time. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1100EO Battery} Ford and James R. Hansen, Armstrong's authorized biographer, presented these findings to Armstrong and NASA representatives, who conducted their own analysis.^[82] The article by Ford, however, is published on Ford's own web site rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and linguists David Beaver and Mark Liberman ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1100ES Battery} wrote of their skepticism of Ford's claims on the blog Language Log.^[83] Although Armstrong found Ford's analysis "persuasive",^[84] he expressed his preference that written quotations include the "a" in parentheses. When Armstrong made his proclamation, Voice of America was rebroadcast live via the BBC and many other stations worldwide. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1100SO Battery} The estimated global audience at that moment was 450 million listeners,^[86] out of a then estimated world population of 3.631 billion people.About 20 minutes after the first step, Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface and became the second human to set foot on the Moon, and the duo began their tasks of investigating how easily a person could operate on the lunar surface. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1100SS Battery} Early on, they unveiled a plaque commemorating their flight, and also planted the flag of the United States. The flag used on this mission had a metal rod to hold it horizontal from its pole. Since the rod did not fully extend, and the flag was tightly folded and packed during the journey, the flag ended up with a slightly wavy appearance, as if there were a breeze. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1100SV Battery} Shortly after their flag planting, President Richard Nixon spoke to them by a telephone call from his office. The President spoke for about a minute, after which Armstrong responded for about thirty seconds. In the entire Apollo 11 photographic record, there are only five images of Armstrong partly shown or reflected. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1101AU Battery} The mission was planned to the minute, with the majority of photographic tasks to be performed by Armstrong with a single Hasselblad camera.After helping to set up the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package, Armstrong went for a walk to what is now known as East Crater, 65 yards (59 m) east of the LM, the greatest distance traveled from the LM on the mission. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1101AX Battery} Armstrong's final task was to leave a small package of memorial items to deceased Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov, and Apollo 1 astronautsGus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee. The time spent on EVA during Apollo 11 was about two and a half hours, the shortest of any of the six Apollo lunar landing missions; ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1101SO Battery} each of the subsequent five landings were allotted gradually longer periods for EVA activities—the crew of Apollo 17, by comparison, spent over 22 hours exploring the lunar surface. After they re-entered the LM, the hatch was closed and sealed. While preparing for the liftoff from the lunar surface, Armstrong and Aldrin discovered that, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1101TU Battery} in their bulky spacesuits, they had broken the ignition switch for the ascent engine; using part of a pen, they pushed the circuit breaker in to activate the launch sequence.^[92] The lunar module then continued to its rendezvous and docked with Columbia, the command and service module. The three astronauts returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific ocean, to be picked up by the USS Hornet. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1101TX Battery} After being released from an 18-day quarantine to ensure that they had not picked up any infections or diseases from the Moon, the crew were feted across the United States and around the world as part of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour. Armstrong then took part in Bob Hope's 1969 USO show, primarily to Vietnam. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1102AU Battery} In May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union to present a talk at the 13th annual conference of the International Committee on Space Research; after arriving in Leningrad from Poland, he traveled to Moscow where he met Premier Alexei Kosygin. He was the first westerner to see the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 and was given a tour of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1102AX Battery} which Armstrong described as "a bit Victorian in nature".^[95] At the end of the day, he was surprised to view delayed video of the launch of Soyuz 9—it had not occurred to Armstrong that the mission was taking place, even though Valentina Tereshkova had been his host and her husband, Andriyan Nikolayev, was on board. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1102TU Battery} Armstrong announced shortly after the Apollo 11 flight that he did not plan to fly in space again.^[97] He was appointed Deputy Associate Administrator for aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), but served in this position for only a year, and resigned from it and NASA as a whole in 1971. HP Pavilion DV6-1102TX Battery He accepted a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati,^[99] having decided on Cincinnati over other universities, including his alma mater, Purdue, because it had a small aerospace department; he hoped that the faculty members would not be annoyed that he came straight into a professorship with only the USC master's degree. HP Pavilion DV6-1103AU Battery He began the work while stationed at Edwards years before, and finally completed it after Apollo 11 by presenting a report on various aspects of Apollo, instead of a thesis on the simulation of hypersonic flight. The official job title he received at Cincinnati was University Professor of Aerospace Engineering. After teaching for eight years, he resigned in 1979 without explaining his reason for leaving. HP Pavilion DV6-1103AX Battery Armstrong served on two spaceflight accident investigations. The first was in 1970, after Apollo 13, where as part of Edgar Cortwright's panel, he produced a detailed chronology of the flight. Armstrong personally opposed the report's recommendation to re-design the service module's oxygen tanks, the source of the explosion. HP Pavilion DV6-1103EE Battery In 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Rogers Commission which investigated the Space-shuttle Challenger disaster of that year. As vice-chairman, Armstrong was in charge of the operational side of the commission. After Armstrong retired from NASA in 1971, he acted as a spokesman for several businesses. HP Pavilion DV6-1103EI Battery The first company to successfully approach him was Chrysler, for whom he appeared in advertising starting in January 1979. Armstrong thought they had a strong engineering division, plus they were in financial difficulty. He later acted as a spokesman for other companies, including General Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. HP Pavilion DV6-1103EO Battery He acted as a spokesman for U.S. businesses only. Along with spokesman duties, he also served on the board of directors of several companies, including Marathon Oil, Learjet, Cinergy (Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company), Taft Broadcasting, United Airlines, Eaton Corporation, AIL Systems and Thiokol. HP Pavilion DV6-1103TU Battery He joined Thiokol's board after he served on the Rogers Commission; the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed due to a problem with the Thiokol-manufactured solid rocket boosters. He retired as chairman of the board of EDO Corporation in 2002. Armstrong was approached by political groups from both ends of the spectrum after his aeronautical career. HP Pavilion DV6-1103TX Battery Unlike former astronauts and U.S. Senators John Glenn (D-OH; 1974-1999 and Harrison Schmitt (R-NM; 1977-1983), Armstrong declined all offers. Personally, he was in favor of states' rights and against the United States acting as the "world's policeman".^[109] In the late 1950s, Armstrong applied at a local Methodist church to lead a Boy Scout troop. When asked for his religious affiliation, he labeled himself as a Deist. HP Pavilion DV6-1104AU Battery His mother later said that Armstrong's religious views caused her grief and distress in later life as she was more religious. His official biography also describes him as a deist.In 1972, Armstrong was welcomed into the town of Langholm, Scotland, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong; he was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the town his home. HP Pavilion DV6-1104AX Battery The Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed 400-year-old law that required him to hang any Armstrong found in the town. In the fall of 1979, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring caught in the wheel, tearing off the tip of his ring finger. HP Pavilion DV6-1104TU Battery He collected the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.^[114] In February 1991, a year after his father had died, and nine months after the death of his mother, he suffered a mild heart attack while skiing with friends at Aspen, Colorado. Armstrong married his first wife Janet Shearon on January 28, 1956. HP Pavilion DV6-1104TX Battery The couple soon added to their family. Their son Eric was born in 1957, followed by daughter, Karen, in 1959. Karen died of complications related to an inoperable brain tumor in January 1962. The following year, the Armstrongs welcomed their third child, son Mark. HP Pavilion DV6-1105AU Battery Armstrong's first wife, Janet, divorced him in 1994, after 38 years of marriage.^[117] He had met his second wife, Carol Held Knight (b. 1945),) in 1992 at a golf tournament, where they were seated together at the breakfast table. She said little to Armstrong, but two weeks later she received a call from him asking what she was doing—she replied she was cutting down a cherry tree; HP Pavilion DV6-1105AX Battery 35 minutes later Armstrong was at her house to help out. They were married on June 12, 1994, in Ohio, and then had a second ceremony, at San Ysidro Ranch, in California. He lived in Indian Hill, Ohio.^[119] Armstrong is generally referred to as a "reluctant" American Hero. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, recalled Armstrong’s legendary humility. HP Pavilion DV6-1105EE Battery “He didn’t feel that he should be out huckstering himself,” the former Ohio senator told CNN.^[120] “He was a humble person, and that’s the way he remained after his lunar flight, as well as before.” After 1994, Armstrong refused all requests for autographs because he found that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries were in circulation; HP Pavilion DV6-1105EI Battery any requests that were sent to him received a form letterin reply, saying that he had stopped signing. Although his no-autograph policy was well known, author Andrew Smithobserved people at the 2002 Reno Air Races still trying to get signatures, with one person even claiming, "If you shove something close enough in front of his face, he'll sign." HP Pavilion DV6-1105EO Battery He also stopped sending out congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, because he believed these letters should come from people who know the Scouts personally.^[122] Use of Armstrong's name, image, and famous quote caused him problems over the years. MTV wanted to use his quote for its now-famous identity depicting the Apollo 11 landing when it launched in 1981, HP Pavilion DV6-1105ES Battery but he declined.^[123] Armstrong suedHallmark Cards in 1994 after they used his name and a recording of "one small step" quote in a Christmas ornament without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court^[124] for an undisclosed amount of money which Armstrong donated to Purdue.^[125] In May 2005, Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal battle with his barber of 20 years, Marx Sizemore. HP Pavilion DV6-1105SL Battery After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission.^[126] Armstrong threatened legal action unless the barber returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to get the hair back, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice. HP Pavilion DV6-1105TU Battery

Neil Alden Armstrong

http://www.all-keyboard.com/,http://www.laptopfan-shop.com/,http://www.laptop-fan-shop.com/ Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. HP Pavilion DV6 Battery After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for AeronauticsHigh-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California. HP Pavilion DV6-1000ET Battery A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott. HP Pavilion DV6-1001TX Battery Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing, in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module. HP Pavilion DV6-1001XX Battery Along with Collins and Aldrin, Armstrong was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon; in 1978, President Jimmy Carter presented Armstrong theCongressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978; he and his former crewmates received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009. HP Pavilion DV6-1002TX Battery Armstrong died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 25, 2012, at the age of 82, after complications from coronary artery bypass surgery. Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio, to Stephen Koenig Armstrong and Viola Louise Engel. HP Pavilion DV6-1003TX Battery He was of Scottish and German ancestry and had two younger siblings, June and Dean. Stephen Armstrong worked as anauditor^[4] for the Ohio state government; the family moved around the state repeatedly after Armstrong's birth, living in 20 towns. Neil's love for flying grew during this time, having gotten off to an early start when his father took his two-year-old son to the Cleveland Air Races. HP Pavilion DV6-1004TX Battery When he was five, he experienced his first airplane flight in Warren, Ohio on July 20, 1936 when he and his father took a ride in a Ford Trimotor, also known as the "Tin Goose".^[5] His father's last move was in 1944, back to Neil's birthplace, Wapakoneta, in Auglaize County. Armstrong attended Blume High School and took flying lessons at the county airport. HP Pavilion DV6-1005EA Battery He earned his flight certificate at age 15, before he had a driver's license. Armstrong was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank ofEagle Scout. As an adult, he was recognized by the Boy Scouts of America with its Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo Award.^[6] On July 18, 1969, while flying towards the Moon inside the Columbia, HP Pavilion DV6-1005EZ Battery Armstrong greeted the Scouts: "I'd like to say hello to all my fellow Scouts and Scouters at Farragut State Park in Idaho having a National Jamboree there this week; and Apollo 11 would like to send them best wishes". Houston replied: "Thank you, Apollo 11. I'm sure that, if they didn't hear that, they'll get the word through the news. Certainly appreciate that."^[7] HP Pavilion DV6-1005TX Battery Among the very few personal items that Neil Armstrong carried with him to the Moon and back was a World Scout Badge.In 1947, at age 17, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was the second person in his family to attend college. He was also accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). HP Pavilion DV6-1006TX Battery The only engineer he knew (who had attended MIT) dissuaded him from attending, telling Armstrong that it was not necessary to go all the way to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a good education.^[9] His college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan: successful applicants committed to two years of study, followed by three years of service in the U.S. Navy, HP Pavilion DV6-1007TX Battery then completion of the final two years of the degree. At Purdue, he earned average marks in his subjects, with a GPA that rose and fell during eight semesters. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree inAeronautical Engineering in 1955, and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1970. HP Pavilion DV6-1008TX Battery Armstrong was later awarded honorary doctorates by several universities. Armstrong's call-up from the Navy arrived on January 26, 1949, requiring him to report to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training at age 18. This lasted almost 18 months, during which he qualified for carrier landing aboard the USS Cabot and USS Wright. HP Pavilion DV6-1009EL Battery On August 16, 1950, two weeks after his 20th birthday, Armstrong was informed by letter that he was a fully qualified Naval Aviator.^[11] His first assignment was to Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 7 at NAS San Diego (now known as NAS North Island). Two months later he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 51 (VF-51), an all-jet squadron, HP Pavilion DV6-1009TX Battery and made his first flight in a jet, an F9F-2B Panther, on January 5, 1951. In June, he made his first jet carrier landing on the USS Essex and was promoted the same week from Midshipman to Ensign. By the end of the month, the Essex had set sail with VF-51 aboard, bound for Korea, where they would act as ground-attack aircraft.^[12] HP Pavilion DV6-1010EA Battery Armstrong first saw action in the Korean War on August 29, 1951, as an escort for a photo reconnaissance plane over Songjin.^[13] Five days later on September 3rd, he flew armed reconnaissance over the primary transportation and storage facilities south of the village of Majon-ni, west of Wonsan. HP Pavilion DV6-1010ED Battery While making a low bombing run at about 350 mph (560 km/h), Armstrong's F9F Panther was hit by anti-aircraft fire. While trying to regain control, he collided with a pole at a height of about 20 feet (6 m), which sliced off about three feet (1 m) of the Panther's right wing.^[14] Armstrong flew the plane back to friendly territory, but due to the loss of the aileron, ejection was his only safe option. HP Pavilion DV6-1010ET Battery He planned to eject over water and await rescue by Navy helicopters, and therefore flew to an airfield near Pohang, but his ejection seat was blown back over land.^[15] A jeep driven by a roommate from flight school picked Armstrong up; it is unknown what happened to the wreckage of No. 125122 F9F-2.^[16] Armstrong flew 78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air, most of which were in January 1952. HP Pavilion DV6-1010TX Battery He received the Air Medal for 20 combat missions, a Gold Star for the next 20, and the Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star.^[17] Armstrong left the Navy at age 22 on August 23, 1952, and became a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He remained in the reserve for eight years, then resigned his commission on October 21, 1960.^[18] HP Pavilion DV6-1011TX Battery As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C variants, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker, and was one of eight elite pilots involved in the paraglider research vehicle program (Paresev). HP Pavilion DV6-1012TX Battery After his service with the Navy, Armstrong returned to Purdue, where his best grades came in the four semesters following his return from Korea. His final GPA was 4.8 out of 6.0.^[19] He pledged the Phi Delta Theta fraternity^[20] after his return and he wrote and co-directed its musical as part of the all-student revue; he was also a member of Kappa Kappa Psi^[21] National Honorary Band Fraternity and a baritone player in the Purdue All-American Marching Band. HP Pavilion DV6-1013EA Battery Armstrong graduated in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering.^[18] After returning to Purdue, he met Janet Elizabeth Shearon, who was majoring in home economics. According to the couple, there was no real courtship, and neither could remember the exact circumstances of their engagement, HP Pavilion DV6-1013TX Battery except that it occurred while Armstrong was working at the NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. They were married on January 28, 1956, at the Congregational Church in Wilmette, Illinois. When he moved to Edwards Air Force Base, he lived in the bachelor quarters of the base, while Janet lived in the Westwood district of Los Angeles. HP Pavilion DV6-1016EZ Battery After one semester, they moved into a house in Antelope Valley. Janet never finished her degree, a fact she regretted later in life.^[22] The couple had three children together: Eric, Karen, and Mark.In June 1961, daughter Karen was diagnosed with a malignant tumor of the middle part of herbrain stem; HP Pavilion DV6-1018EL Battery X-ray treatment slowed its growth, but her health deteriorated to the point where she could no longer walk or talk. Two-year-old Karen died ofpneumonia, related to her weakened health, on January 28, 1962.^[24] Armstrong later completed his master of science degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Southern California. HP Pavilion DV6-1020EC Battery Following his graduation from Purdue, Armstrong decided to become an experimental research test pilot. He applied at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base; although they had no open positions, they did forward his application to the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, where Armstrong began working at Lewis Field in March 1955. HP Pavilion DV6-1020ED Battery Armstrong's stint at Cleveland lasted a couple of months, and by July 1955, he returned to Edwards AFB for his new job.^[26] On his first day at Edwards, Armstrong was tasked his first assignments, which were to pilot chase planes during releases of experimental aircraft from modified bombers. HP Pavilion DV6-1020EI Battery He also flew the modified bombers, and on one of these missions had his first flight incident at Edwards. On March 22, 1956, Armstrong was in a Boeing B-29 Superfortress,^[27] which was to air-drop a Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. He sat in the right-hand pilot seat while the left-hand seat commander, Stan Butchart, flew the B-29.^[28] HP Pavilion DV6-1020EJ Battery As they ascended to 30,000 feet (9.1 km), the number-four engine stopped and the propeller began windmilling (rotating freely) in the airstream. Hitting the switch that would stop the propeller's spinning, Butchart found the propeller slowed but then started spinning again, this time even faster than the other engines; if it spun too fast, it would break apart. HP Pavilion DV6-1020EK Battery Their aircraft needed to hold an airspeed of 210 mph (338 km/h) to launch its Skyrocket payload, and the B-29 could not land with the Skyrocket still attached to its belly. Armstrong and Butchart brought the aircraft into a nose-down alignment to increase speed, then launched the Skyrocket. At the instant of launch, the number-four engine propeller disintegrated. HP Pavilion DV6-1020EL Battery Pieces of it damaged the number-three engine and hit the number-two engine. Butchart and Armstrong were forced to shut down the number-three engine, due to damage, and the number-one engine, due to the torque it created. They made a slow, circling descent from 30,000 ft (9,000 m) using only the number-two engine, and landed safely.^[29] HP Pavilion DV6-1020EQ Battery Armstrong's first flight in a rocket plane was on August 15, 1957, in the Bell X-1B, to an altitude of 11.4 miles (18.3 km). The nose landing gear broke on landing, which had happened on about a dozen previous flights of the Bell X-1B due to the aircraft's design.^[30] He later flew the North American X-15 seven times; his penultimate flight reached an altitude of 207,500 feet (63.2 km). HP Pavilion DV6-1020ET Battery Armstrong was involved in several incidents that went down in Edwards folklore and/or were chronicled in the memoirs of colleagues. The first occurred during his sixth X-15 flight on April 20, 1962, while Armstrong tested a self-adjusting control system. He flew to a height of over 207,000 feet (63 km), HP Pavilion DV6-1022EL Battery (the highest he flew before Gemini 8), but the aircraft nose was held up up too long during descent and the X-15 bounced off the atmosphere back up to 140,000 feet (43 km). At that altitude, the air is so thin that aerodynamic surfaces have almost no effect. He flew past the landing field at Mach 3 (2,000 mph (3,200 km/h)) at over 100,000 feet (30 km) in altitude, HP Pavilion DV6-1023EF Battery and ended up 40 miles (64 km) south of Edwards (legend has it that he flew as far as the Rose Bowl in Pasadena). After sufficient descent, he turned back toward the landing area, and barely managed to land without striking Joshua trees at the south end. It was the longest X-15 flight in both time and distance from the ground track.^[31] HP Pavilion DV6-1023EM Battery Four days later, Armstrong was involved in a second incident, when he flew for the only time with Chuck Yeager. Their job, flying a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, was to evaluate Smith Ranch Dry Lake for use as an emergency landing site for the X-15. In his autobiography, Yeager wrote that he knew the lake bed was unsuitable for landings after recent rains, but Armstrong insisted on flying out anyway. HP Pavilion DV6-1025EF Battery As they attempted a touch-and-go, the wheels became stuck and they had to wait for rescue. Armstrong tells a different version of events, where Yeager never tried to talk him out of it and they made a first successful landing on the east side of the lake. Then Yeager told him to try again, this time a bit slower. On the second landing, they became stuck and according to Armstrong, Yeager was in fits of laughter. HP Pavilion DV6-1025EI Battery Many of the test pilots at Edwards praised Armstrong's engineering ability. Milt Thompson said he was "the most technically capable of the early X-15 pilots." Bill Dana said Armstrong "had a mind that absorbed things like a sponge." Those who flew for the Air Force tended to have a different opinion, especially people like Yeager and Pete Knight, who did not have engineering degrees. HP Pavilion DV6-1025EZ Battery Knight said that pilot-engineers flew in a way that was "more mechanical than it is flying," and gave this as the reason why some pilot-engineers got into trouble: their flying skills did not come naturally.^[33] A few weeks later on May 21, 1962, Armstrong was involved in what Edwards' folklore called the "Nellis Affair." HP Pavilion DV6-1027EF Battery He was sent in aLockheed F-104 Starfighter to inspect Delamar Dry Lake in southern Nevada, again for emergency landings. He misjudged his altitude, and also did not realize that the landing gear had not fully extended. As he touched down, the landing gear began to retract; Armstrong applied full power to abort the landing, HP Pavilion DV6-1030CA Battery but the ventral fin and landing gear door struck the ground, damaging the radio and releasing hydraulic fluid. Without radio communication, Armstrong flew south to Nellis Air Force Base, past the control tower, and waggled his wings, the signal for a no-radio approach. The loss of hydraulic fluid caused the tail-hook to release, and upon landing, he caught the arresting wire attached to an anchor chain, and dragged the chain along the runway. HP Pavilion DV6-1030EC Battery It took thirty minutes to clear the runway and rig an arresting cable and Armstrong telephoned Edwards and asked for someone to collect him. Milt Thompson was sent in an F-104B, the only two-seater available, but a plane Thompson had never flown. With great difficulty, Thompson made it to Nellis, but a strong crosswind caused a hard landing and the left main tire suffered a blowout. HP Pavilion DV6-1030ED Battery The runway was again closed to clear it, and Bill Dana was sent to Nellis in a T-33 Shooting Star, but he almost landed long—and the Nellis base operations office decided that to avoid any further problems, it would be best to find the three NASA pilots ground transport back to Edwards. Armstrong made seven flights in the X-15 from November 1960 to July 1962. HP Pavilion DV6-1030EF Battery He reached a top altitude of 207,500 feet (63.2 km) in the X-15-3, and a top speed of Mach 5.74 (3,989 mph (6,420 km/h)) in the X-15-1; he left the Dryden Flight Research Center with a total of 2,400 flying hours.^[36] Over his career, he flew more than 200 different models of aircraft. There was no defining moment in Armstrong's decision to become an astronaut^. HP Pavilion DV6-1030EM Battery In 1958, he was selected for the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. In November 1960, Armstrong was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space plane under development by Boeing for the U.S. Air Force, and on March 15, 1962, he was selected by the U.S. Air Force as one of seven pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane when it got off the design board. HP Pavilion DV6-1030EO Battery In the months after the announcement that applications were being sought for the second group of NASA astronauts, Armstrong became more and more excited about the prospects of both the Apollo program and of investigating a new aeronautical environment. Armstrong's astronaut application arrived about a week past the June 1, 1962, deadline. HP Pavilion DV6-1030EQ Battery Luckily Dick Day, with whom Armstrong had worked closely at Edwards, saw the late arrival of the application and slipped it into the pile before anyone noticed.^[38] At Brooks City-Base at the end of June, Armstrong underwent a medical exam that many of the applicants described as painful and at times seemingly pointless.HP Pavilion DV6-1030US Battery Deke Slayton called Armstrong on September 13, 1962, and asked whether he would be interested in joining the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of what the press dubbed "the New Nine"; without hesitation, Armstrong said yes. The selections were kept secret until three days later, although newspaper reports had been circulating since earlier that year that he would be selected as the "first civilian astronaut." ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1038CA Battery} Armstrong was one of two civilian pilots selected for the second group; the other was Elliot See, also a former naval aviator.^[41] See was scheduled to command Gemini 9, but died in a T-38 crash in 1966 that also took the life of crewmate Charles Bassett. Armstrong was the first American civilian in space, but the first civilian was Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, nearly three years earlier. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EB Battery} A textile worker and amateur parachutist, she was aboard Vostok 6 when it launched on June 16, 1963. The crew assignments for Gemini 8 were announced on September 20, 1965, with Armstrong as Command Pilot and David Scott as Pilot. Scott was the first member of the third group of astronauts to receive a prime crew assignment. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040ED Battery} The mission launched on March 16, 1966; it was to be the most complex yet, with a rendezvous and docking with the unmanned Agena target vehicle, the second American extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by Scott. In total, the mission was planned to last 75 hours and 55 orbits. After the Agena lifted off at 10 a.m. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EI Battery} EST, the Titan II carrying Armstrong and Scott ignited at 11:41:02 am EST, putting them into an orbit from where they would chase the Agena. The rendezvous and first-ever docking between two spacecraft was successfully completed after 6.5 hours in orbit.Contact with the crew was intermittent due to the lack of tracking stations covering their entire orbits. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EJ Battery} Out of contact with the ground, the docked spacecraft began to roll, and Armstrong attempted to correct this with the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS) of the Gemini spacecraft. Following the earlier advice of Mission Control, they undocked, but found that the roll increased dramatically to the point where they were turning about once per second, which meant the problem was in their Gemini's attitude control. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EK Battery} Armstrong decided the only course of action was to engage the Reentry Control System (RCS) and turn off the OAMS. Mission rules dictated that once this system was turned on, the spacecraft would have to reenter at the next possible opportunity. It was later thought that damaged wiring made one of the thrusters become stuck in the on position. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EL Battery} Throughout the astronaut office there were a few people, most notably Walter Cunningham, who publicly stated that Armstrong and Scott had ignored the malfunction procedures for such an incident, and that Armstrong could have salvaged the mission if he had turned on only one of the two RCS rings, saving the other for mission objectives. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EV Battery} These criticisms were unfounded; no malfunction procedures were written and it was possible to turn on only both RCS rings, not just one or the other. Gene Kranzwrote, "the crew reacted as they were trained, and they reacted wrong because we trained them wrong." The mission planners and controllers had failed to realize that when two spacecraft are docked together, they must be considered to be one spacecraft. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1040EZ Battery} Armstrong himself was depressed^[47] that the mission had been cut short, canceling most mission objectives and robbing Scott of his EVA. The last assignment for Armstrong in the Gemini program was as the back-up Command Pilot for Gemini 11, announced two days after the landing of Gemini 8. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1042EL Battery} Having trained for two flights, Armstrong was quite knowledgeable about the systems and was more in a teaching role^[48] for the rookie backup Pilot, William Anders. The launch was on September 12, 1966,^[49] with Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon on board, who successfully completed the mission objectives, while Armstrong served as CAPCOM. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1044EL Battery} Following the flight, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Armstrong and his wife to take part in a 24-day goodwill tour of South America.^[50] Also on the tour, which took in 11 countries and 14 major cities, were Dick Gordon, George Low, their wives, and other government officials. In Paraguay, Armstrong impressed dignitaries by greeting them in their local language, Guarani; ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1045EE Battery} in Brazil he talked about the exploits of the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont, who was regarded as having beaten the Wright brothers with the first flying machine with his 14-bis. On January 27, 1967, the date of the Apollo 1 fire, Armstrong was in Washington, D.C., with Gordon Cooper, Dick Gordon, ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1045EI Battery} Jim Lovell and Scott Carpenter for the signing of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty. The astronauts chatted with the assembled dignitaries until 6:45 p.m. when Carpenter went to the airport, and the others returned to the Georgetown Inn, where they each found messages to phone the Manned Spacecraft Center. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1045EO Battery} During these telephone calls, they learned of the deaths of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Armstrong and the group spent the rest of the night drinking scotch and discussing what had happened.On April 5, 1967, the same day the Apollo 1 investigation released its report on the fire, Armstrong assembled with 17 other astronauts for a meeting with Deke Slayton. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1045EZ Battery} The first thing Slayton said was, "The guys who are going to fly the first lunar missions are the guys in this room."^[54] According to Eugene Cernan, Armstrong showed no reaction to the statement. To Armstrong it came as no surprise—the room was full of veterans of Project Gemini, the only people who could fly the lunar missions. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1046EL Battery} Slayton talked about the planned missions and named Armstrong to the backup crew for Apollo 9, which at that stage was planned to be amedium Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module-Command/Service Module combination. After design and manufacturing delays in the Lunar Module (LM), Apollo 9 andApollo 8 swapped crews. ^{HP Pavilion DV6-1050EF Battery}

Pluto's ascending and descending nodes

Pluto's ascending and descending nodes, the points at which its orbit crosses the ecliptic, are currently separated from Neptune's by over 21°.^[64]This alone is not enough to protect Pluto; perturbations from the planets (especially Neptune) could alter aspects of Pluto's orbit (such as its orbital precession) over millions of years so that a collision could be possible. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560 Battery Some other mechanism or mechanisms must therefore be at work. The most significant of these is that Pluto lies in the 2:3 mean motion resonance with Neptune: for every two orbits that Pluto makes around the Sun, Neptune makes three. The two objects then return to their initial positions and the cycle repeats, each cycle lasting about 500 years. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560N24 Battery This pattern is such that, in each 500-year cycle, the first time Pluto is near perihelion Neptune is over 50° behind Pluto. By Pluto's second perihelion, Neptune will have completed a further one and a half of its own orbits, and so will be a similar distanceahead of Pluto. Pluto and Neptune's minimum separation is over 17 AU. Pluto comes closer to Uranus (11 AU) than it does to Neptune.^[63] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560N30 Battery The 2:3 resonance between the two bodies is highly stable, and is preserved over millions of years.^[65] This prevents their orbits from changing relative to one another; the cycle always repeats in the same way, and so the two bodies can never pass near to each other. Thus, even if Pluto's orbit were not highly inclined the two bodies could never collide. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P Battery Numerical studies have shown that over periods of millions of years, the general nature of the alignment between Pluto and Neptune's orbits does not change.There are several other resonances and interactions that govern the details of their relative motion, and enhance Pluto's stability. These arise principally from two additional mechanisms (besides the 2:3 mean motion resonance). Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P20 Battery First, Pluto's argument of perihelion, the angle between the point where it crosses the ecliptic and the point where it is closest to the Sun, librates around 90°.^[66] This means that when Pluto is nearest the Sun, it is at its farthest above the plane of the Solar System, preventing encounters with Neptune. This is a direct consequence of the Kozai mechanism, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P22 Battery which relates the eccentricity of an orbit to its inclination to a larger perturbing body—in this case Neptune. Relative to Neptune, the amplitude of libration is 38°, and so the angular separation of Pluto's perihelion to the orbit of Neptune is always greater than 52° (= 90°–38°). The closest such angular separation occurs every 10,000 years.^[65] Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P28 Battery Second, the longitudes of ascending nodes of the two bodies—the points where they cross the ecliptic—are in near-resonance with the above libration. When the two longitudes are the same—that is, when one could draw a straight line through both nodes and the Sun—Pluto's perihelion lies exactly at 90°, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P30 Battery and it comes closest to the Sun at its peak above Neptune's orbit. In other words, when Pluto most closely intersects the plane of Neptune's orbit, it must be at its farthest beyond it. This is known as the 1:1 superresonance, and is controlled by all the Jovian planets.^[61] To understand the nature of the libration, imagine a polar point of view, Sony VAIO VGN-BZ560P34 Battery looking down on the ecliptic from a distant vantage point where the planets orbitcounter-clockwise. After passing the ascending node, Pluto is interior to Neptune's orbit and moving faster, approaching Neptune from behind. The strong gravitational pull between the two causes angular momentum to be transferred to Pluto, at Neptune's expense. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561 Battery This moves Pluto into a slightly larger orbit, where it travels slightly slower, according to Kepler's third law. As its orbit changes, this has the gradual effect of changing the pericentre and longitudes of Pluto (and, to a lesser degree, of Neptune). After many such repetitions, Pluto is sufficiently slowed, and Neptune sufficiently speeded up, that Neptune begins to catch Pluto at the opposite side of its orbit Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561N20 Battery (near the opposing node to where we began). The process is then reversed, and Pluto loses angular momentum to Neptune, until Pluto is sufficiently speeded up that it begins to catch Neptune again at the original node. The whole process takes about 20,000 years to complete. Pluto's distance from Earth makes in-depth investigation difficult. Many details about Pluto will remain unknown until 2015, when the New Horizonsspacecraft is expected to arrive there. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ561P20 Battery Pluto's visual apparent magnitude averages 15.1, brightening to 13.65 at perihelion.^[2] To see it, a telescope is required; around 30 cm (12 in) aperture being desirable.^[70] It looks star-like and without a visible disk even in large telescopes, because its angular diameter is only 0.11".Sony VAIO VGN-BZ562P Battery The earliest maps of Pluto, made in the late 1980s, were brightness maps created from close observations of eclipses by its largest moon, Charon. Observations were made of the change in the total average brightness of the Pluto–Charon system during the eclipses. For example, eclipsing a bright spot on Pluto makes a bigger total brightness change than eclipsing a dark spot. Sony VAIO VGN-BZ563P Battery Computer processing of many such observations can be used to create a brightness map. This method can also track changes in brightness over time. Current maps have been produced from images from the Hubble Space Telescope(HST), which offers the highest resolution currently available, and show considerably more detail, Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAFS Battery resolving variations several hundred kilometres across, including polar regions and large bright spots.^[74] The maps are produced by complex computer processing, which find the best-fit projected maps for the few pixels of the Hubble images.^[75] The two cameras on the HST used for these maps are no longer in service, so these will likely remain the most detailed maps of Pluto until the 2015 flyby of New Horizons.^[75] Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAHS Battery These maps, together with Pluto's lightcurve and the periodic variations in its infrared spectra, reveal that Pluto's surface is remarkably varied, with large changes in both brightness and colour.^[76] Pluto is one of the most contrastive bodies in the Solar System, with as much contrast as Saturn's moon Iapetus. Sony VAIO VGN-BZAANS Battery The colour varies between charcoal black, dark orange and white:^[77] Buie et al. term it "significantly less red than Mars and much more similar to the hues seen on Io with a slightly more orange cast".^[74] Pluto's surface has changed between 1994 and 2002-3: the northern polar region has brightened and the southern hemisphere darkened. Sony VAIO VGN-BZAAPS Battery Pluto's overall redness has also increased substantially between 2000 and 2002.^[77] These rapid changes are probably related to seasonal condensation and sublimation of portions of Pluto's atmosphere, amplified by Pluto's extreme axial tilt and high orbital eccentricity.^[77] Spectroscopic analysis of Pluto's surface reveals it to be composed of more than 98 percent nitrogen ice, Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/Q Battery with traces of methane and carbon monoxide.^[78] The face of Pluto oriented toward Charon contains more methane ice, while the opposite face contains more nitrogen and carbon monoxide ice. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope place Pluto's density at between 1.8 and 2.1 g/cm³, suggesting its internal composition consists of roughly 50–70 percent rock and 30–50 percent ice by mass. Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/R Battery Because decay of radioactive minerals would eventually heat the ices enough for the rock to separate from them, scientists expect that Pluto's internal structure is differentiated, with the rocky material having settled into a dense core surrounded by a mantle of ice. The diameter of the core should be around 1,700 km, 70% of Pluto's diameter. Sony VAIO VGN-CS118E/W Battery It is possible that such heating continues today, creating a subsurface ocean layer of liquid water some 100 to 180 km thick at the core–mantle boundary.^[80][82] The DLR Institute of Planetary Research calculated that Pluto's density-to-radius ratio lies in a transition zone, along with Neptune's moonTriton, between icy satellites like the mid-sized moons of Uranus and Saturn, and rocky satellites such as Jupiter'sEuropa. Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/P Battery Pluto's mass is 1.31×10²² kg, less than 0.24 percent that of the Earth,^[84] while its diameter is 2,306 (± 20) km, or roughly 66% that of the Moon.^[8] Pluto's atmosphere complicates determining its true solid size within a certain margin.^[9] Pluto's albedo varies from 0.49–0.66. The discovery of Pluto's satellite Charon in 1978 enabled a determination of the mass of the Pluto–Charon system by application of Newton's formulation of Kepler's third law. Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/Q Battery Once Charon's gravitational effect was measured, Pluto's true mass could be determined. Observations of Pluto in occultation with Charon allowed scientists to establish Pluto's diameter more accurately, while the invention of adaptive optics allowed them to determine its shape more accurately. Sony VAIO VGN-CS11S/W Battery Among the objects of the Solar System, Pluto is much less massive than the terrestrial planets, and at less than 0.2 lunar masses, it is also less massive than seven moons: Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Io, Earth's Moon, Europa and Triton. Pluto is more than twice the diameter and a dozen times the mass of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. Sony VAIO VGN-CS11Z/R Battery It is less massive than the dwarf planet Eris, a trans-Neptunian object discovered in 2005. Given the error bars in the different size estimates, it is currently unknown whether Eris or Pluto has the larger diameter.^[87] Both Pluto and Eris are estimated to have solid-body diameters of about 2330 km. Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/P Battery Determinations of Pluto's size are complicated by its atmosphere, and possible hydrocarbon haze. Pluto's atmosphere consists of a thin envelope of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide gases, which are derived from the ices of these substances on its surface.^[89] Its surface pressure ranges from 6.5 to 24 μbar. Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/Q Battery Pluto's elongated orbit is predicted to have a major effect on its atmosphere: as Pluto moves away from the Sun, its atmosphere should gradually freeze out, and fall to the ground. When Pluto is closer to the Sun, the temperature of Pluto's solid surface increases, causing the ices to sublimate into gas. This creates an anti-greenhouse effect; Sony VAIO VGN-CS120J/R Battery much as sweat cools the body as it evaporates from the surface of the skin, this sublimation cools the surface of Pluto. Scientists using the Submillimeter Array have recently discovered that Pluto's temperature is about 43 K (−230 °C), 10 K colder than would otherwise be expected.^[91] The presence of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in Pluto's atmosphere creates a temperature inversion, with average temperatures 36 K warmer 10 km above the surface. Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTB Battery The lower atmosphere contains a higher concentration of methane than its upper atmosphere.^[92] The first evidence of Pluto's atmosphere was first suggested by N. Brosch and H. Mendelson of the Wise Observatory in Israel in 1985,^[93] and then definitively detected by the Kuiper Airborne Observatory in 1988, from observations of occultations of stars by Pluto.^[94] Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTP Battery When an object with no atmosphere moves in front of a star, the star abruptly disappears; in the case of Pluto, the star dimmed out gradually.^[93] From the rate of dimming, the atmospheric pressure was determined to be 0.15 pascal, roughly 1/700,000 that of Earth.^[95] In 2002, another occultation of a star by Pluto was observed and analysed by teams led by Bruno Sicardy of the Paris Observatory, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTQ Battery} James L. Elliot of MIT,^[97]and Jay Pasachoff of Williams College.^[98] Surprisingly, the atmospheric pressure was estimated to be 0.3 pascal, even though Pluto was farther from the Sun than in 1988 and thus should have been colder and had a more rarefied atmosphere. One explanation for the discrepancy is that in 1987 the south pole of Pluto came out of shadow for the first time in 120 years, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTR Battery} causing extra nitrogen to sublimate from the polar cap. It will take decades for the excess nitrogen to condense out of the atmosphere as it freezes onto the north pole's now continuously dark ice cap.^[99] Spikes in the data from the same study revealed what may be the first evidence of wind in Pluto's atmosphere. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTW Battery} Another stellar occultation was observed by the MIT-Williams College team of James Elliot, Jay Pasachoff, and aSouthwest Research Institute team led by Leslie Young on June 12, 2006 from sites in Australia.^{[100] Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NAB Battery} In October 2006, Dale Cruikshank of NASA/Ames Research Center (a New Horizons co-investigator) and his colleagues announced the spectroscopic discovery ofethane on Pluto's surface. This ethane is produced from the photolysis or radiolysis (i.e., the chemical conversion driven by sunlight and charged particles) of frozen methane on Pluto's surface and suspended in its atmosphere. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NAC Battery} Pluto has five known natural satellites: Charon, first identified in 1978 by astronomer James Christy; Nix and Hydra, both discovered in 2005,^[102] S/2011 (134340) 1 (provisional name, also known as P4), identified by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2011,^[103] and S/2012 (134340) 1 found in 2012 and referred to as P5.^{[104] Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NAD Battery} The Plutonian moons are unusually close to Pluto, compared to other observed systems. Moons could potentially orbit Pluto up to 53% (or 69%, if retrograde) of the Hill sphere radius, the stable gravitational zone of Pluto's influence. For example,Psamathe orbits Neptune at 40% of the Hill radius. In the case of Pluto, only the inner 3% of the zone is known to be occupied by satellites. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NBB Battery} In the discoverers’ terms, the Plutonian system appears to be "highly compact and largely empty",^[105] although others have pointed out the possibility of additional objects, including a small ring system. The Pluto–Charon system is noteworthy for being one of the Solar System's few binary systems, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NCA Battery} defined as those whose barycentre lies above the primary's surface (617 Patroclus is a smaller example, the Sun and Jupiter the only larger one).^[107] This and the large size of Charon relative to Pluto has led some astronomers to call it a dwarf double planet.^[108] The system is also unusual among planetary systems in that each is tidally locked to the other: ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NCB Battery} Charon always presents the same face to Pluto, and Pluto always presents the same face to Charon: from any position on either body, the other is always at the same position in the sky, or always obscured.^[109] Because of this, the rotation period of each is equal to the time it takes the entire system to rotate around its common centre of gravity.^{[67] Sony VAIO VGN-CS190NCC Battery} Just as Pluto revolves on its side relative to the orbital plane, so the Pluto–Charon system does also.^[68] In 2007, observations by the Gemini Observatory of patches of ammonia hydrates and water crystals on the surface of Charon suggested the presence of active cryo-geysers. Two additional moons of Pluto were imaged by astronomers working with the Hubble Space Telescope on May 15, 2005, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS50B/W Battery} and receivedprovisional designations of S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2. The International Astronomical Union officially named Pluto's newest moons Nix (or Pluto II, the inner of the two moons, formerly P 2) and Hydra (Pluto III, the outer moon, formerly P 1), on June 21, 2006.^[111] These small moons orbit Pluto at approximately two and three times the distance of Charon: ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS51B/W Battery} Nix at 48,700 kilometres and Hydra at 64,800 kilometres from the barycenter of the system. They have nearly circular prograde orbits in the same orbital plane as Charon. Observations of Nix and Hydra to determine individual characteristics are ongoing. Hydra is sometimes brighter than Nix, suggesting either that it is larger or that different parts of its surface may vary in brightness. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS52JB/W Battery} Sizes are estimated from albedos. If the moons' albedo is similar to Charon's at 35%, then their diameters can be estimated at 46 kilometres for Nix and 61 kilometres for the brighter Hydra. Upper limits on their diameters can be estimated by assuming the 4% albedo of the darkest Kuiper Belt objects; these bounds are 137 ± 11 km and 167 ± 10 km, respectively. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS60B/P Battery} At the larger end of this range, the inferred masses are less than 0.3% that of Charon, or 0.03% of Pluto's.^[112] The discovery of the two small moons suggests that Pluto may possess a variable ring system. Small-body impacts can create debris that can form into planetary rings. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS60B/Q Battery} Data from a deep optical survey by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that no ring system is present. If such a system exists, it is either tenuous like the rings of Jupiter or is tightly confined to less than 1,000 km in width.^[106] Similar conclusions have been made from occultation studies. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS60B/R Battery} Pluto's origin and identity had long puzzled astronomers. One early hypothesis was that Pluto was an escaped moon of Neptune, knocked out of orbit by its largest current moon, Triton. This notion has been heavily criticised because Pluto never comes near Neptune in its orbit.^[119] Pluto's true place in the Solar System began to reveal itself only in 1992, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS61B/P Battery} when astronomers began to find small icy objects beyond Neptune that were similar to Pluto not only in orbit but also in size and composition. This trans-Neptunian population is believed to be the source of many short-period comets. Astronomers now believe Pluto to be the largest^[h] member of the Kuiper belt, a somewhat stable ring of objects located between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS61B/Q Battery} Like other Kuiper-belt objects (KBOs), Pluto shares features with comets; for example, the solar wind is gradually blowing Pluto's surface into space, in the manner of a comet.^[120] If Pluto were placed as near to the Sun as Earth, it would develop a tail, as comets do.^[121] Though Pluto is the largest of the Kuiper belt objects discovered so far, ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS61B/R Battery} Neptune's moon Triton, which is slightly larger than Pluto, is similar to it both geologically and atmospherically, and is believed to be a captured Kuiper belt object.^[122] Eris (see below) is also larger than Pluto but is not strictly considered a member of the Kuiper belt population. Rather, it is considered a member of a linked population called thescattered disc. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS62JB/P Battery} A large number of Kuiper belt objects, like Pluto, possess a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune. KBOs with this orbital resonance are called "plutinos", after Pluto.^[123] Like other members of the Kuiper belt, Pluto is thought to be a residual planetesimal; a component of the original protoplanetary disc around the Sun that failed to fully coalesce into a full-fledged planet. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS62JB/Q Battery} Most astronomers agree that Pluto owes its current position to a sudden migration undergone by Neptune early in the Solar System's formation. As Neptune migrated outward, it approached the objects in the proto-Kuiper belt, setting one in orbit around itself, which became its moon Triton, locking others into resonances and knocking others into chaotic orbits. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS62JB/R Battery} The objects in the scattered disc, a dynamically unstable region overlapping the Kuiper belt, are believed to have been placed in their current positions by interactions with Neptune's migrating resonances.^[124] A 2004 computer model by Alessandro Morbidelli of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice suggested that the migration of Neptune into the ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS71B/W Battery} Kuiper belt may have been triggered by the formation of a 1:2 resonance between Jupiter and Saturn, which created a gravitational push that propelled both Uranus and Neptune into higher orbits and caused them to switch places, ultimately doubling Neptune's distance from the Sun. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS72JB/W Battery} The resultant expulsion of objects from the proto-Kuiper belt could also explain the Late Heavy Bombardment 600 million years after the Solar System's formation and the origin of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.^[125] It is possible that Pluto had a near-circular orbit about 33 AU from the Sun before Neptune's migration perturbed it into a resonant capture. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS90HS Battery} The Nice model requires that there were about a thousand Pluto-sized bodies in the original planetesimal disk; these may have included the bodies which became Triton and Eris. ^{Sony VAIO VGN-CS90NS Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-CS90S Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-CS91HS Battery}