WHY WE ARE IGNORING ARMSTRONG

boblonsberry.com ^ | 08/28/12 | Bob Lonsberry

[shortstop]

As long as mankind is a species of sentience and technology, as long as history is kept and read, the name of Neil A. Armstrong will be known.

It will be Columbus and Magellan and Armstrong, each leapfrogging the other in the innate human impulse to explore, remembered as long as man remembers.

Whether man walked out of Africa or was kicked out of Eden, he went where he’d never been, and his descendants did the same until the earth was peopled and the heavens were challenged.

Some walked across the Bering Strait, others rowed through the nothingness of the south Pacific, or hiked over mountains and swamps and deserts. We conquered this earth and Neil A. Armstrong was the first to conquer beyond.

And history will wonder at the way we ignored his passing.

When the names Romney and Obama have moldered into meaninglessness, school children will still learn the name of Armstrong and be inspired by what he did. His will be one of the greatest names of our era, one of the greatest men to ever live.

This man should have a state funeral.

This man should lie in state in the Capitol.

This man should have been afforded something other than the slightest of half-staff honors.

Yesterday, the president ordered the America flags at federal properties to be flown at half- staff on Friday, the day Neil A. Armstrong is buried.

That seems like a nice gesture, but it is such a slight gesture as to be insulting.

When Obama himself dies, for example, the flag will be lowered for 30 days. The Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House, would get 10 days, and if a member of the president’s cabinet were to die, the period of respect would be from the day of their death until the day of their burial.

If a member of Congress dies, the flags are lowered the day they die and the day that follows.

And the first man to walk on the moon gets half that.

It is an honor, but not really.

And it is emblematic of the disrespect being shown this hero in his death. He chose to live humbly, we have chosen to bury him ignobly.

Part of it could be that the one time he spoke up in criticism of a federal policy in all the years since he walked on the moon was just recently, when he harshly criticized the current president for essentially ending America’s manned space flight program.

Obama gets his revenge, but history will have the last say.

And history will understand what we cannot.

Six hundred million people around the world watched this man climb down a ladder on black-and-white television because they understood the significance of what he was doing. They knew they were witnessing history, and they wanted to be a part of it.

Today, we want no part of it.

We have lost the spine and the stones necessary to go new places, to solve hard problems and reach great heights. We are more concerned about not interrupting the welfare cheese than we are about being men and truly exploring.

We have been castrated by a new way of thinking and doing. Neil A. Armstrong rode a rocket of American might, but today’s NASA has specifically denounced any more all-American flights.

It would be arrogant for America to go to Mars or the Moon alone, NASA has said, so we would only go as part of a coalition.

Neil A. Armstrong’s coalition was him and Buzz and an army of crew-cut engineers.

While today’s space exploration consists of landing our seventh rover on the surface of Mars, and politely ignoring the fact that the Spanish weather equipment doesn’t work, the exploration of Armstrong’s era involved creating whole new technologies to go to a whole new place.

Perhaps we have ignored the passing of Neil A. Armstrong because we cannot live up to the legacy of Neil A. Armstrong. Perhaps looking back at him and his era makes us look weak and useless by comparison.

You don’t know how puny you are until you stand next to a giant, and Neil A. Armstrong was a giant. For what he did, and for what he represented.

And now he is gone.

And perhaps he took our soul with him.

Perhaps it’s been downhill since 1969.

He will inspire future generations, but mostly he is shaming ours.

By reminding us of who we used to be.

[jboot]

Neil Armstrong represented everything the liberals hate about America. He was a brilliant, ambitious, goal-oriented, rugged leader and-most vexing of all-he was humble to the bone. His triumph was built on hard work, sacrifice and commitment, all things that are anethema to the progs.

He also was openly critical of the White Hut's (non-)space policy. I'm sure that went a long way to putting him on Zero's sh*tlist.

[ConorMacNessa]

"When Obama himself dies, for example, the flag will be lowered for 30 days."

The Flag at Castle MacNessa will fly high and proud during that period.

Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon was the culmination of an arduous team effort and stands as one of the great technological accomplishments of all time. The voyage itself was fraught with danger - recall how many of our Astronauts have perished in the performance of their duties. Armstrong acquitted himself magnificently, with courage, grace and humility.



How upside down are the values of this Administration that the Flag is lowered for victims of random violence and not lowered for our honored Fallen, and lowered only for a single day for a hero like Neil Armstrong!

The passing of Neil Armstrong deserves, IMHO, a much greater tribute than this Administration has accorded him.

Godspeed Neil Armstrong and Rest in Peace!



Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[ConorMacNessa]

And don't forget St. Brendan the Navigator! :)



Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[fatnotlazy]

Obama ordered the flags lowered and delivered his usual insincere tribute. Now he's hoping to wrangle an invitation to the funeral service so he can campaign.

[NonValueAdded]

Shout out for Astronaut Michael Collins, the third member of the Apollo 11 crew.

[saywhatagain]

"WHY WE ARE IGNORING ARMSTRONG?"

Because the current President was only "Made In America?"

He does not have a clue how to speak of nor honor anyone of greatness?

And of course the minions surrounding him could care less of anything that might acknowledge "American Exceptionalism"

[NCC-1701]

Whitney Houston got nearly a week of having the flag at half staff. How does she rate above Neil Armstrong? Neil has accomplished more than she has in an endeavor that MEANT something. Singing and acting are fluff compared to going to the moon and doing what Neil and the rest of those guys did back then. The shooting at that temple a few weeks ago garnered a few days of having the flag lowered. And Neil gets ONE DAY!

Does he deserve a state funeral? Probably because of who is was, that being the first to set foot on another world. But he was a private man and will get a private service. He may have wanted things that way. He may have been embarassed by a full blown state funeral.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Brings back memories of the early space program.

I can still name all 7 Mercury astronauts. Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton. Back in the day, they were all heroes.

They all paved the way for the Appolo moon landings, and all other space activity since.

[Dilbert San Diego]

they will be remembered, as long as history is taught. Do they teach school kids about things such as the moon landings?

I got in an argument the other day with somebody, about California’s new law that requires teaching homosexual, trans-whatever history. I said that with limited school time, that teaching homosexual history would crowd out other things. And I am convinced that history such as our space program could indeed be squeezed out in favor of politically correct history.

[Covenantor]

A little remembered fact about the lunar mission.

Along with the American Flag, Armstrong and Aldrin left this little item on the surface of the moon.

The Apollo One Mission patch designed by the three astronauts themselves.

A memorial to their three comrades who died in the command module fire during a test on the launch pad. Apollo One, the flight that never was.

The investigation of the fire uncovered severe deficiencies and lapses in the NASA mind set, design flaws, and dereliction in monitoring contract work, not to mention the cover-up efforts after the fact.

The Wikipedia piece is worth the read.

[B212]

Unnoticed, by intent...a male, and a white guy as well...

[apillar]

As long as mankind is a species of sentience and technology, as long as history is kept and read, the name of Neil A. Armstrong will be known.

Or to paraphrase what one of high school teachers once said about Neil Armstrong, "A thousand years from now when students pick up their history books and the entire 20th century is reduced to one or two pages, Neil Armstrong being the first man on the moon will be what they read learn our time."

[Charles Martel]

Whitney Houston got nearly a week of having the flag at half staff. How does she rate above Neil Armstrong?

I assume this is a rhetorical question.

[RavenLooneyToon]

Neil Armstrong:

78 missions over Korea for a total of 121 hours in the air. He received the Air Medal for 20 combat missions, a Gold Star for the next 20, and the Korean Service Medal and Engagement Star.

Master of science degree in aeronautical engineering.
Professor of aeronautical engineering Purdue University.
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy
The Sylvanus Thayer Award
The Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautics Association
Congressional Gold Medal.
The lunar crater Armstrong, 31 mi (50 km) from the Apollo 11 landing site, and asteroid 6469 Armstrong[133] are named in his honor.

HE WALKED ON THE FREAK'N MOON!
WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE!

Treating his death as a sidebar, as a trivial foot note, absolutely disgusts me to the point of vomiting in my throat.

Any leader of our nation who had an once of character and respect would go on national television and pay tribute to the greatest American to ever live and declare a national day of mourning, propose a plan to send man to Mars with in the next decade and remind us all that it is not what the nation can do for you, it's about what you can do for your nation.

I am so enraged, disappointed, and designedly disgusted with today's culture of irresponsible, underachieving and mentally disabled gurly-men who are shaping and controlling the minds of our future generations.

I mourn for Neil Armstrong.
I mourn for our nation.
I mourn for our children.
I mourn for our greatness. I mourn for our freedom and our Republic.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

I believe Neil Armstrong would reject the comparison to Columbus and Magellan, who organized and commanded their entire efforts from the ground up.

I've heard two lunar astronauts (Collins and Cernan) speak in person. Both of them went out of their way to emphasize that they got the PR because their skiils and training enabled them to sit at the sharp end of the rocket, but that there were thousands of others who contributed every bit as much as the astronauts did.

[Poison Pill]

The Vikings, at a minimum, preceded Columbus

That's true. And their may have been other Europeans before them. But they weren't robust enough to project themselves onto the New World. We are the cultural descendents of Columbus, not Ericson.

[apillar]

Unnoticed, by intent...a male, and a white guy as well...

Unfortunately I think that's a lot of it. Armstrong wasn't a minority, a women or gay. He wasn't an outspoken liberal, he didn't push a "cause" such as global warming or gay rights and by all accounts he was publicly apolitical and refused to endorse a candidate from any party. In other words, he just didn't fit the narrative of the modern "hero" as defined by the media.

[Ezekiel]

Zero's sh*tlist

Crackers on the moon rank right up there.

I wonder if stomping around on the moon was an especially heinous blasphemy for the moongod worshipers. After all, twelve crackers have walked on the moon, all Americans.

FUBO

[apillar]

Whitney Houston got nearly a week of having the flag at half staff. How does she rate above Neil Armstrong?

Neil Armstrong needed a billion dollar rocket to get as high as the moon...Whitney Houston only need a few grams of crack.

[dfwgator]

It would be interesting to compare and contrast with the media’s treatment of Sally Ride’s recent passing.