NEIL ARMSTRONG’S CHILDREN
[Their dad flew on Apollo 11, July 1969; Armstrong died in 2012]ON HAVING AN EXTRAORDINARY FATHER
Rick Armstrong: “He was just dad. He just went to work. We were just an
ordinary family. We did ordinary things. We had ordinary problems.”ON HUMILITY
Rick Armstrong: “He always liked to say that he wasn’t picked to be first to
be on the moon, it just worked out that way. Any one of the astronauts in the
Apollo program could have ended up in the same spot.”ON SUCCESS
Mark Armstrong: “I think there’s plenty of Neil Armstrongs out there in
the world. Because if you break it down a little bit, he’s a guy who wanted to
serve his country. He worked hard. He prepared himself as best he could for
whatever the future might bring him. He used to say that success is where
preparation met opportunity.”AL WORDEN
APOLLO 15, JULY-AUGUST 1971
INTERVIEWED IN OCTOBER 2018; NOW AGE 87
ON BEING ALONE
“I was raised in the Air
Force as a single-seat
fighter pilot, so I was used
to being by myself. As a
matter of fact, I preferred
to be by myself because
I didn’t really want to be
responsible for somebody
else on the flight. I didn’t
feel lonely. There’s a
difference between being
lonely and being alone;
I was alone, but I wasn’t
lonely. The best part of
the lunar flight for me in
those three days [at the
moon] was when I was on
the backside of the moon,
cut off from Houston
mission control. I didn’t
even have to talk to them.
I was very comfortable.”
ON LUNAR SCIENCE
“I was very busy in lunar orbit, probably did more science than they did on the
surface. The guys who go down to the surface, they have one thing in mind. Their
goal was to pick up every different-color rock they can find and bring it back. In
the meantime, I’m photographing 25 percent of the moon’s surface! So there was
a lot involved in what I did, but it wasn’t romantic like walking on the moon. I
didn’t have the facilities with me to take any pictures inside. Well, I’m not a selfie
kind of guy anyway.”JUNE 2019. DISCOVER 41