Neil Armstrong talk: Dublin, Ireland, November 17th

Heads up for Irish and UK sci.space.history people - Neil Armstrong
giving a talk in Dublin this November! Prices a little steep, but worth
it

-------------------------------------------------------

Neil Armstrong is coming to Dublin in November! Details as
follows:

Neil Armstrong will be at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm,
Monday 17 Nov, in the series "Face to Face". Members of the audience
will have the opportunity to ask questions. Tickets start at 40
Euro.

Online orders can be placed with the National Concerty Hall at:
http://www.nch.ie

Tel. orders to: +353-1-4170000. There will be NO AUTOGRAPHS.

Brian O'Halloran wrote in message ...
Heads up for Irish and UK sci.space.history people - Neil Armstrong
giving a talk in Dublin this November! Prices a little steep, but worth
it

-------------------------------------------------------

Neil Armstrong is coming to Dublin in November! Details as
follows:

Neil Armstrong will be at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm,
Monday 17 Nov, in the series "Face to Face". Members of the audience
will have the opportunity to ask questions. Tickets start at 40
Euro.

Online orders can be placed with the National Concerty Hall at:
http://www.nch.ie

Tel. orders to: +353-1-4170000. There will be NO AUTOGRAPHS.


From the Jul. 18, 1999 - Cincinnati Enquirer

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/199...trong_the.html




Neil Armstrong, Reluctant Hero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first man on the moon shuns interviews and avoids the spotlight,
preferring the quiet - almost anonymous life hje has created in
Southwest Ohio

BY JOHN JOHNSTON, SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With one small step on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took his place
among the greatest explorers in history. The first man to set foot on
the moon could have chosen to live in the heroic afterglow of that
stunning achievement. Instead the Wapakoneta, Ohio, native retreated
from the spotlight, settled in Southwest Ohio, and carved out a new
life.

Now 68, he has long been reluctant to discuss his moon
mission. As the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11 approached, he declined
interview requests, including the Enquirer's. His one concession was a
hastily arranged press conference Friday at Kennedy Space Center.

In an America that hungers for heroes, he is the genuine
article many times over: a brave jet fighter pilot who narrowly
escaped death on one of his 78 combat mission in Korea; a daring test
pilot who soared in the X-15, an experimental rocket plane; and the
Apollo 11 commander who deftly guided the lunar module Eagle past
boulders and craters before landing on the moon with only 20 seconds
of fuel to spare.

His reticence has led some people to inaccurately label him as
reclusive. In fact, Mr. Armstrong has actively participated in the
southwestern Ohio community. But he has done so on his own terms,
without fanfare.

He has attempted to blend in, whether farming on his Warren
County property serving on various community and corporate boards, or
teaching at the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace
engineering from 1971-79.

He also made time for family, accompanying his two boys to Boy
Scout meetings, and rooting them on at football games. He and his
first wife, Janet, divorced five years ago. He has remarried, and
today he and his wife, Carol, live in Indian Hill.

Friends and colleagues offer these glimpses of the personality
of the first man to step onto another world.

He abandoned the fame to become "common' man
• Jim Rogers president and CEO of Cinergy Corp., considers Mr.
Armstrong, a Cinergy board member, both business associate and friend.
They met in 1994 with the merger of PSI and CG&E.

He also considers Mr. Armstrong a hero and not just because he
was the first person on the moon.

"He stepped out and did a truly courageous thing, which has
inspired all people in this century. And then he returned to sort of
everyday life and lived his life in a very humble way, in a very quiet
way. Many people in the astronaut program have tried to exploit their
role for their own personal gain, and he's a man who did what he had
to do and came back and lived life as an ordinary man."

• Roger Launius is NASA chief historian in Washington D.C.,
and has met Neil Armstrong several times over the years. NASA has
tried to respect Mr. Armstrong's interest in privacy, he said.

"Some people would love to see him be more outspoken. But he's
been a private citizen since 1971 when he left the agency."

• Howard Benedict was senior aerospace writer for the
Associated Press for 31 years and is now executive director of the
Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in Titusville, Fla.

"After he went to the moon, he really disliked all the
attention that was on him, and the way NASA dragged him and the crew
around the world. He always said they never knew what country they
were in because they were traveling to two, three or four a day. It
just wore them out. He always wanted to be a professor of aerospace
engineering, and as soon as he got out of NASA, that's where he went."

• Ron Huston, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC, was
Neil Armstrong's boss at UC — to the extent that anybody was his boss.
Mr. Huston was director of the Institute for Applied Interdisciplinary
Research. Mr. Armstrong was associate director.

Mr. Armstrong was different than the many former astronauts
who went on to high-level NASA jobs, or used their fame to launch
political or business careers, Mr. Huston said.

"He wasn't the paper-pushing type. He liked engineering. But
he really liked flying airplanes. He didn't give interviews, but he
wasn't a strange person or hard to talk to. He just didn't like being
a novelty."

."

• Lawrence Rogers lives across the street from Mr. Armstrong's
Indian Hill home. He said it wasn't easy for Mr. Armstrong to evade
the media when he came to town.

At their first meeting, more than 20 years ago, Mr. Armstrong
had just begun teaching at the University of Cincinnati. Mr. Rogers
was then president of Taft Broadcasting Co.

The university provost called a meeting with the major news
media representatives in town. With Mr. Armstrong sitting at the table
during the lunch at the Queen City Club, the provost asked the
journalists to back off.

"They were having a very difficult time with Mr. Armstrong
because the media wouldn't leave him alone."

Mr. Armstrong was receiving hundreds of pieces of mail, almost
impossible to handle because he did not have a secretary.

Mr. Rogers recalled the provost saying: "Would you kindly lay
off him and never mention his name again." Mr. Rogers said he spoke
up.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my entire
life. Here's a man whose exploits rival those of Amerigo Vespucci and
Christopher Columbus. He's the most famous man in the world today ...
and you're telling us to clam up and pretend he doesn't exist? Go back
to the university and buy him a secretary or two secretaries."

Afterward, Mr. Armstrong approached him.

"Neil walked up and grabbed me by the elbow and said,
"Thanks.' That's how we met. I guess he thought he ought to have
secretarial help, too."

• John Zwez has become one of the world's leading experts on
the man, as curator of the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
Neil Armstrong has kept a low profile even when stopping at his
hometown's museum. He has visited it about five times since it opened
on July 20, 1972. Sometimes he came in for special occasions; other
times, he just dropped in.

On one visit, Mr. Zwez walked with Mr. Armstrong around the
museum. Of about 15 or 20 visitors, only one recognized him.

"We saw this couple arguing by my office, but I couldn't tell
what they were arguing about. We went on into my office. A few seconds
later, I saw this cane, the man had a cane, and he kind of tapped on
the door with his cane. He asked, "Are you Neil Armstrong?' Neil said
yes. The man left and I heard him say, "See, I told you that was Neil
Armstrong.'"

The man didn't ask for an autograph or picture.

"Neil just smiled."

• Paul Herdman is chairman of 1st National Bank in Lebanon and
was a Warren County judge for 30 years. As a banker and attorney, Mr.
Herdman invested in real estate with Mr. Armstrong for about 20 years.
He described how Mr. Armstrong blended into the crowd at 4-H auctions
at the Warren County Fair.

"He used to go bid on the cattle. He'd stand in the back. I
don't think anybody knew him. He used to try to run the price up on me
on his son's own cattle. I don't think anyone knew it ... "

"He was an old farmer like everyone else, and he'd come to the
fair like a farmer."

• Larry Crisenberry is a Warren County commissioner who got to
know Neil Armstrong at Boy Scout meetings with their sons in the
1970s.

When someone would approach him and ask about his historic
flight, Mr. Armstrong would say, "I'd rather not talk about this." For
six to seven years of Scout meetings, Mr. Armstrong stuck to one topic
in conversations — his boys and their merit badges.

"He would always go off and be in a corner. He didn't want the
public eye at all. If you didn't know him, you didn't know he was
there."

• Jim VanDeGrift is a Turtlecreek Township trustee and
neighbor of the Armstrongs in Warren County. He met Mr. Armstrong more
than 20 years ago when their children were in school at the same time.
He said the people of Warren County welcomed Mr. Armstrong as one of
their own.

"He just wanted to be a citizen in the community and take his
place, and that's what we all accepted him as."

Mr. Armstrong was very supportive of his children and
regularly attended the high school football games.

• Lawrence Rogers said he remembers one time when Mr.
Armstrong did talk about his space excursions. He remembers him making
time for a small boy following a dove shoot on a plantation in Florida
last October. The plantation manager's son, age 5 or 6, approached Mr.
Armstrong. The little boy was dressed in fatigues and asked in awe
about space.

"He was explaining to the little boy about the moon's orbit
around the Earth. ... We were all standing with our mouths open,
here's Neil giving a demonstration in astrophysics to a little
5-year-old boy.

"The boy was asking him what the Earth looked like (from
space) and whether he was standing upside down, things only a
5-year-old could think of."

• Ron Holtrey lives on Ohio 123 in Warren County a few doors
down from the Armstrong farm. He's known Mr. Armstrong for more than
20 years, starting when he helped coach the Lebanon High School
football team. For 10 years, he and Mr. Armstrong and their wives were
in a Friday golfing group.

He said Mr. Armstrong is just a "common" and "ordinary" kind
of guy who mows his own grass.

They last saw each other two weeks ago at a wedding. Mr.
Armstrong told Mr. Holtrey that he still drives from his Indian Hill
home two or three days a week up to the remodeled farm house near
Lebanon.

"He spends a couple days a week up there mowing and trimming."

His work is precise, controlled, focused
• William J. Keating, a former U.S. congressman and Enquirer
publisher, has known Mr. Armstrong for nearly three decades and has
been impressed by his ability to zero in on the task before him.

"Neil is absolutely focused. Whatever he does, his
concentration is complete. I can remember playing with him in a PGA
pro-golf tournament in Honolulu. He was about to hit a golf ball, and
this big explosion went off that we could hear. It didn't even faze
him. He didn't even seem to hear it. He hit the shot and hit it well."

Mr. Armstrong's technical knowledge also impressed Mr.
Keating.

"I was publisher of the Enquirer, and we had on the front page
of the paper a diagram we had used from AP. We printed it as we
received it, and it showed something going around the Earth. I
happened to run into him later that morning. He said, "Bill, that
diagram was wrong.' And I said, "Show me.' He took out paper and a
pencil and showed me how it was different and how it was wrong. I got
ahold of my friends at the AP and told them what he said. I got a call
a couple hours later, and they said, "Yeah, we were wrong, and he was
right.'"

• Rodger Koppa helped teach astronauts to walk in lunar
conditions. An associate professor of engineering at Texas A&M
University, College Station, and a former General Electric Co.
engineer, remembers Mr. Armstrong as an astronaut. "Neil was all
business. He had infinite patience. We had all kinds of delays in the
training, and we'd tell the other astronauts to sit down, take off the
suits for a while, but Neil would stand there in his suit and say,
"When you are ready, let's get it done.' He was never cold about it.
Just contained and controlled, precise about everything."

• Rocco Petrone was launch director for Apollo 11. He's now
73, retired, and living in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.

"When I was with him, he was all business. He never went out
of his way to be voluble. ... This was a quiet man who was driven by
the job he was doing."

• The late Robert Kroll was a former UC professor of aerospace
engineering, who once sat in on an Amstrong class. In a 1994
interview, he remembered the test pilot discussing an X-15 experience.
"The things he told us were fascinating, but he told them in a simple,
matter-of-fact manner. Something went wrong during one of his flights,
and it turned into a Mach 2 free fall from 30,000 feet. He told it
like he was walking down to the post office."

• Dr. Henry Heimlich is best known for developing the Heimlich
maneuver to save choking victims in 1974. Shortly after Mr. Armstrong
arrived at UC, Dr. Heimlich, who was then director of surgery for
Jewish Hospital, began working with him on a miniature heart-lung
machine, before heart transplants were done.

"He immediately grasped the concept and joined me. Neil
obtained the last two existing very small pumps that were used to
circulate fluid in the space suits, in order to maintain a constant
temperature. We ran tests on those pumps. ...

"We worked together for about six years, and had wonderful
meetings every week in my laboratory, stimulating and fun. We never
got to complete the heart-lung apparatus, but we learned a great deal.
One of the products resulting from our studies is the Micro Trach, a
very tiny tube that is inserted in the trachea, or windpipe, to
deliver oxygen on a permanent basis. This is widely used throughout
this country and other countries."

About the time that Mr. Armstrong left UC, Dr. Heimlich left
Jewish Hospital and their collaboration ended. They did not, Dr.
Heimlich says, ever discuss Mr. Armstrong's exploits in space "except
relative to the (heart-lung) pump. I don't think it would have had a
purpose in our gathering."

• Jim Rogers of Cinergy Corp. said he played 18 holes of golf
with Mr. Armstrong on the day of the 25th anniversary of the moon
landing.

"During the course of the entire day, Neil never mentioned
that it was the 25th anniversary of him walking on the moon. In this
age when everybody wants 15 minutes of fame, and everybody is trying
to exploit their deeds and blow them out of proportion, he is just the
opposite. He underplays it. He's almost like a John Wayne character.
An Old West, aw shucks, kind of guy."

He won't take credit for community work
• Jack Flaherty is president of Senour-Flaherty Insurance
Agency, which has offices in Mason and Lebanon. He met Mr. Armstrong
24 years ago at a meeting to build what would become the Ralph Stolle
Countryside YMCA in Lebanon. About 10 people met once a week for
several years, brainstorming plans for the center.

"There were 10 or eight of us with very strong personalities,
and we would all have different ideas, and he had the ability to
listen to everybody and synopsize the idea and say, "How does this
sound,' and put it all together."

The current expansion under way on the YMCA will push its size
to 200,000 square feet, the largest YMCA in the country without a
residence, Mr. Flaherty said. All of Mr. Armstrong's work on it was
voluntary.

"Neil gave thousands of hours to the Countryside YMCA and
would take absolutely no credit."

• DeVere Burt was executive director of the Cincinnati Museum
of Natural History when Mr. Armstrong agreed to serve as museum board
chairman in the early 1980s.

"He did so much more than lend his name to it. He was there at
a very critical time, a time when the organization was looking at its
future at the Gilbert Avenue site and came to the conclusion that its
future was somewhere else."

Although Mr. Armstrong was not board chairman when the
decision was made to move the museum to Union Terminal, he helped lay
the foundation for such a move.

"Neil probably could have said, "No, this is not what I agreed
to do.' Instead, he helped me devise the feasibility studies that
looked at the long-range (goals) for the institution.

"He's a very enthusiastic person. Well-prepared. Board
meetings were carefully orchestrated. His preparation was absolutely
as diligent as any chairman I've worked with, probably more diligent
than all of them. He wanted the facts, he wanted our positions clear.
He wanted to anticipate the questions and have the answers. He was
very, very thorough, very meticulous."

• George Neargarder of St. Marys is president of the Auglaize
County Historical Society.

"Three years ago, we needed money to restore a copper lady
that once sat atop the old courthouse. The project cost more money
than we had — $32,000. Neil Armstrong agreed to sign 250 prints of the
courthouse, which we sold for $150 each. His only stipulation was that
they be sold in the county; otherwise, the dealers would have bought
all of them."

Epilogue: "I just happened to be there'
• Jim Rogers met with Cinergy's board again Wednesday. Mr.
Armstrong was there.

"At the start, I tried to make a joke that soon we were going
to have an important day coming. I said, July 20 is the date of my
grandson's birthday, and Neil, it must be an important day for you
too. I laughed and he laughed.

"Then I said what an honor it was for me and every member of
the board to serve with him. In his own wonderful way, he just smiled.

"He sort of said something like: "I just happened to be
there.' That says it all."

Enquirer reporters Mark Curnutte and Tim Bonfield contributed
to this report.

From the March 27 2003 Cincinnati Post

http://www.cincypost.com/2003/03/27/wecker032703.html


--
Keith & Laura Koether


"Rusty B" wrote in message
m...
Brian O'Halloran wrote in message
...
Heads up for Irish and UK sci.space.history people - Neil Armstrong
giving a talk in Dublin this November! Prices a little steep, but worth
it

-------------------------------------------------------

Neil Armstrong is coming to Dublin in November! Details as
follows:

Neil Armstrong will be at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm,
Monday 17 Nov, in the series "Face to Face". Members of the audience
will have the opportunity to ask questions. Tickets start at 40
Euro.

Online orders can be placed with the National Concerty Hall at:
http://www.nch.ie

Tel. orders to: +353-1-4170000. There will be NO AUTOGRAPHS.


From the Jul. 18, 1999 - Cincinnati Enquirer

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/199...trong_the.html




Neil Armstrong, Reluctant Hero
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
The first man on the moon shuns interviews and avoids the spotlight,
preferring the quiet - almost anonymous life hje has created in
Southwest Ohio

BY JOHN JOHNSTON, SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With one small step on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took his place
among the greatest explorers in history. The first man to set foot on
the moon could have chosen to live in the heroic afterglow of that
stunning achievement. Instead the Wapakoneta, Ohio, native retreated
from the spotlight, settled in Southwest Ohio, and carved out a new
life.

Now 68, he has long been reluctant to discuss his moon
mission. As the 30th anniversary of Apollo 11 approached, he declined
interview requests, including the Enquirer's. His one concession was a
hastily arranged press conference Friday at Kennedy Space Center.

In an America that hungers for heroes, he is the genuine
article many times over: a brave jet fighter pilot who narrowly
escaped death on one of his 78 combat mission in Korea; a daring test
pilot who soared in the X-15, an experimental rocket plane; and the
Apollo 11 commander who deftly guided the lunar module Eagle past
boulders and craters before landing on the moon with only 20 seconds
of fuel to spare.

His reticence has led some people to inaccurately label him as
reclusive. In fact, Mr. Armstrong has actively participated in the
southwestern Ohio community. But he has done so on his own terms,
without fanfare.

He has attempted to blend in, whether farming on his Warren
County property serving on various community and corporate boards, or
teaching at the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace
engineering from 1971-79.

He also made time for family, accompanying his two boys to Boy
Scout meetings, and rooting them on at football games. He and his
first wife, Janet, divorced five years ago. He has remarried, and
today he and his wife, Carol, live in Indian Hill.

Friends and colleagues offer these glimpses of the personality
of the first man to step onto another world.

He abandoned the fame to become "common' man
. Jim Rogers president and CEO of Cinergy Corp., considers Mr.
Armstrong, a Cinergy board member, both business associate and friend.
They met in 1994 with the merger of PSI and CG&E.

He also considers Mr. Armstrong a hero and not just because he
was the first person on the moon.

"He stepped out and did a truly courageous thing, which has
inspired all people in this century. And then he returned to sort of
everyday life and lived his life in a very humble way, in a very quiet
way. Many people in the astronaut program have tried to exploit their
role for their own personal gain, and he's a man who did what he had
to do and came back and lived life as an ordinary man."

. Roger Launius is NASA chief historian in Washington D.C.,
and has met Neil Armstrong several times over the years. NASA has
tried to respect Mr. Armstrong's interest in privacy, he said.

"Some people would love to see him be more outspoken. But he's
been a private citizen since 1971 when he left the agency."

. Howard Benedict was senior aerospace writer for the
Associated Press for 31 years and is now executive director of the
Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in Titusville, Fla.

"After he went to the moon, he really disliked all the
attention that was on him, and the way NASA dragged him and the crew
around the world. He always said they never knew what country they
were in because they were traveling to two, three or four a day. It
just wore them out. He always wanted to be a professor of aerospace
engineering, and as soon as he got out of NASA, that's where he went."

. Ron Huston, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC, was
Neil Armstrong's boss at UC - to the extent that anybody was his boss.
Mr. Huston was director of the Institute for Applied Interdisciplinary
Research. Mr. Armstrong was associate director.

Mr. Armstrong was different than the many former astronauts
who went on to high-level NASA jobs, or used their fame to launch
political or business careers, Mr. Huston said.

"He wasn't the paper-pushing type. He liked engineering. But
he really liked flying airplanes. He didn't give interviews, but he
wasn't a strange person or hard to talk to. He just didn't like being
a novelty."

."

. Lawrence Rogers lives across the street from Mr. Armstrong's
Indian Hill home. He said it wasn't easy for Mr. Armstrong to evade
the media when he came to town.

At their first meeting, more than 20 years ago, Mr. Armstrong
had just begun teaching at the University of Cincinnati. Mr. Rogers
was then president of Taft Broadcasting Co.

The university provost called a meeting with the major news
media representatives in town. With Mr. Armstrong sitting at the table
during the lunch at the Queen City Club, the provost asked the
journalists to back off.

"They were having a very difficult time with Mr. Armstrong
because the media wouldn't leave him alone."

Mr. Armstrong was receiving hundreds of pieces of mail, almost
impossible to handle because he did not have a secretary.

Mr. Rogers recalled the provost saying: "Would you kindly lay
off him and never mention his name again." Mr. Rogers said he spoke
up.

"This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my entire
life. Here's a man whose exploits rival those of Amerigo Vespucci and
Christopher Columbus. He's the most famous man in the world today ...
and you're telling us to clam up and pretend he doesn't exist? Go back
to the university and buy him a secretary or two secretaries."

Afterward, Mr. Armstrong approached him.

"Neil walked up and grabbed me by the elbow and said,
"Thanks.' That's how we met. I guess he thought he ought to have
secretarial help, too."

. John Zwez has become one of the world's leading experts on
the man, as curator of the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
Neil Armstrong has kept a low profile even when stopping at his
hometown's museum. He has visited it about five times since it opened
on July 20, 1972. Sometimes he came in for special occasions; other
times, he just dropped in.

On one visit, Mr. Zwez walked with Mr. Armstrong around the
museum. Of about 15 or 20 visitors, only one recognized him.

"We saw this couple arguing by my office, but I couldn't tell
what they were arguing about. We went on into my office. A few seconds
later, I saw this cane, the man had a cane, and he kind of tapped on
the door with his cane. He asked, "Are you Neil Armstrong?' Neil said
yes. The man left and I heard him say, "See, I told you that was Neil
Armstrong.'"

The man didn't ask for an autograph or picture.

"Neil just smiled."

. Paul Herdman is chairman of 1st National Bank in Lebanon and
was a Warren County judge for 30 years. As a banker and attorney, Mr.
Herdman invested in real estate with Mr. Armstrong for about 20 years.
He described how Mr. Armstrong blended into the crowd at 4-H auctions
at the Warren County Fair.

"He used to go bid on the cattle. He'd stand in the back. I
don't think anybody knew him. He used to try to run the price up on me
on his son's own cattle. I don't think anyone knew it ... "

"He was an old farmer like everyone else, and he'd come to the
fair like a farmer."

. Larry Crisenberry is a Warren County commissioner who got to
know Neil Armstrong at Boy Scout meetings with their sons in the
1970s.

When someone would approach him and ask about his historic
flight, Mr. Armstrong would say, "I'd rather not talk about this." For
six to seven years of Scout meetings, Mr. Armstrong stuck to one topic
in conversations - his boys and their merit badges.

"He would always go off and be in a corner. He didn't want the
public eye at all. If you didn't know him, you didn't know he was
there."

. Jim VanDeGrift is a Turtlecreek Township trustee and
neighbor of the Armstrongs in Warren County. He met Mr. Armstrong more
than 20 years ago when their children were in school at the same time.
He said the people of Warren County welcomed Mr. Armstrong as one of
their own.

"He just wanted to be a citizen in the community and take his
place, and that's what we all accepted him as."

Mr. Armstrong was very supportive of his children and
regularly attended the high school football games.

. Lawrence Rogers said he remembers one time when Mr.
Armstrong did talk about his space excursions. He remembers him making
time for a small boy following a dove shoot on a plantation in Florida
last October. The plantation manager's son, age 5 or 6, approached Mr.
Armstrong. The little boy was dressed in fatigues and asked in awe
about space.

"He was explaining to the little boy about the moon's orbit
around the Earth. ... We were all standing with our mouths open,
here's Neil giving a demonstration in astrophysics to a little
5-year-old boy.

"The boy was asking him what the Earth looked like (from
space) and whether he was standing upside down, things only a
5-year-old could think of."

. Ron Holtrey lives on Ohio 123 in Warren County a few doors
down from the Armstrong farm. He's known Mr. Armstrong for more than
20 years, starting when he helped coach the Lebanon High School
football team. For 10 years, he and Mr. Armstrong and their wives were
in a Friday golfing group.

He said Mr. Armstrong is just a "common" and "ordinary" kind
of guy who mows his own grass.

They last saw each other two weeks ago at a wedding. Mr.
Armstrong told Mr. Holtrey that he still drives from his Indian Hill
home two or three days a week up to the remodeled farm house near
Lebanon.

"He spends a couple days a week up there mowing and trimming."

His work is precise, controlled, focused
. William J. Keating, a former U.S. congressman and Enquirer
publisher, has known Mr. Armstrong for nearly three decades and has
been impressed by his ability to zero in on the task before him.

"Neil is absolutely focused. Whatever he does, his
concentration is complete. I can remember playing with him in a PGA
pro-golf tournament in Honolulu. He was about to hit a golf ball, and
this big explosion went off that we could hear. It didn't even faze
him. He didn't even seem to hear it. He hit the shot and hit it well."

Mr. Armstrong's technical knowledge also impressed Mr.
Keating.

"I was publisher of the Enquirer, and we had on the front page
of the paper a diagram we had used from AP. We printed it as we
received it, and it showed something going around the Earth. I
happened to run into him later that morning. He said, "Bill, that
diagram was wrong.' And I said, "Show me.' He took out paper and a
pencil and showed me how it was different and how it was wrong. I got
ahold of my friends at the AP and told them what he said. I got a call
a couple hours later, and they said, "Yeah, we were wrong, and he was
right.'"

. Rodger Koppa helped teach astronauts to walk in lunar
conditions. An associate professor of engineering at Texas A&M
University, College Station, and a former General Electric Co.
engineer, remembers Mr. Armstrong as an astronaut. "Neil was all
business. He had infinite patience. We had all kinds of delays in the
training, and we'd tell the other astronauts to sit down, take off the
suits for a while, but Neil would stand there in his suit and say,
"When you are ready, let's get it done.' He was never cold about it.
Just contained and controlled, precise about everything."

. Rocco Petrone was launch director for Apollo 11. He's now
73, retired, and living in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.

"When I was with him, he was all business. He never went out
of his way to be voluble. ... This was a quiet man who was driven by
the job he was doing."

. The late Robert Kroll was a former UC professor of aerospace
engineering, who once sat in on an Amstrong class. In a 1994
interview, he remembered the test pilot discussing an X-15 experience.
"The things he told us were fascinating, but he told them in a simple,
matter-of-fact manner. Something went wrong during one of his flights,
and it turned into a Mach 2 free fall from 30,000 feet. He told it
like he was walking down to the post office."

. Dr. Henry Heimlich is best known for developing the Heimlich
maneuver to save choking victims in 1974. Shortly after Mr. Armstrong
arrived at UC, Dr. Heimlich, who was then director of surgery for
Jewish Hospital, began working with him on a miniature heart-lung
machine, before heart transplants were done.

"He immediately grasped the concept and joined me. Neil
obtained the last two existing very small pumps that were used to
circulate fluid in the space suits, in order to maintain a constant
temperature. We ran tests on those pumps. ...

"We worked together for about six years, and had wonderful
meetings every week in my laboratory, stimulating and fun. We never
got to complete the heart-lung apparatus, but we learned a great deal.
One of the products resulting from our studies is the Micro Trach, a
very tiny tube that is inserted in the trachea, or windpipe, to
deliver oxygen on a permanent basis. This is widely used throughout
this country and other countries."

About the time that Mr. Armstrong left UC, Dr. Heimlich left
Jewish Hospital and their collaboration ended. They did not, Dr.
Heimlich says, ever discuss Mr. Armstrong's exploits in space "except
relative to the (heart-lung) pump. I don't think it would have had a
purpose in our gathering."

. Jim Rogers of Cinergy Corp. said he played 18 holes of golf
with Mr. Armstrong on the day of the 25th anniversary of the moon
landing.

"During the course of the entire day, Neil never mentioned
that it was the 25th anniversary of him walking on the moon. In this
age when everybody wants 15 minutes of fame, and everybody is trying
to exploit their deeds and blow them out of proportion, he is just the
opposite. He underplays it. He's almost like a John Wayne character.
An Old West, aw shucks, kind of guy."

He won't take credit for community work
. Jack Flaherty is president of Senour-Flaherty Insurance
Agency, which has offices in Mason and Lebanon. He met Mr. Armstrong
24 years ago at a meeting to build what would become the Ralph Stolle
Countryside YMCA in Lebanon. About 10 people met once a week for
several years, brainstorming plans for the center.

"There were 10 or eight of us with very strong personalities,
and we would all have different ideas, and he had the ability to
listen to everybody and synopsize the idea and say, "How does this
sound,' and put it all together."

The current expansion under way on the YMCA will push its size
to 200,000 square feet, the largest YMCA in the country without a
residence, Mr. Flaherty said. All of Mr. Armstrong's work on it was
voluntary.

"Neil gave thousands of hours to the Countryside YMCA and
would take absolutely no credit."

. DeVere Burt was executive director of the Cincinnati Museum
of Natural History when Mr. Armstrong agreed to serve as museum board
chairman in the early 1980s.

"He did so much more than lend his name to it. He was there at
a very critical time, a time when the organization was looking at its
future at the Gilbert Avenue site and came to the conclusion that its
future was somewhere else."

Although Mr. Armstrong was not board chairman when the
decision was made to move the museum to Union Terminal, he helped lay
the foundation for such a move.

"Neil probably could have said, "No, this is not what I agreed
to do.' Instead, he helped me devise the feasibility studies that
looked at the long-range (goals) for the institution.

"He's a very enthusiastic person. Well-prepared. Board
meetings were carefully orchestrated. His preparation was absolutely
as diligent as any chairman I've worked with, probably more diligent
than all of them. He wanted the facts, he wanted our positions clear.
He wanted to anticipate the questions and have the answers. He was
very, very thorough, very meticulous."

. George Neargarder of St. Marys is president of the Auglaize
County Historical Society.

"Three years ago, we needed money to restore a copper lady
that once sat atop the old courthouse. The project cost more money
than we had - $32,000. Neil Armstrong agreed to sign 250 prints of the
courthouse, which we sold for $150 each. His only stipulation was that
they be sold in the county; otherwise, the dealers would have bought
all of them."

Epilogue: "I just happened to be there'
. Jim Rogers met with Cinergy's board again Wednesday. Mr.
Armstrong was there.

"At the start, I tried to make a joke that soon we were going
to have an important day coming. I said, July 20 is the date of my
grandson's birthday, and Neil, it must be an important day for you
too. I laughed and he laughed.

"Then I said what an honor it was for me and every member of
the board to serve with him. In his own wonderful way, he just smiled.

"He sort of said something like: "I just happened to be
there.' That says it all."

Enquirer reporters Mark Curnutte and Tim Bonfield contributed
to this report.

Just booked up for it! Thanks for the heads up.
Anyone in the UK interested in going, tickets to Dublin from Luton are
are a unbelievable '92p' each way on RyanAir (+ £11 in airport tax)

Cheers
David

Brian O'Halloran wrote in message ...
Heads up for Irish and UK sci.space.history people - Neil Armstrong
giving a talk in Dublin this November! Prices a little steep, but worth
it

-------------------------------------------------------

Neil Armstrong is coming to Dublin in November! Details as
follows:

Neil Armstrong will be at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, 8pm,
Monday 17 Nov, in the series "Face to Face". Members of the audience
will have the opportunity to ask questions. Tickets start at 40
Euro.

Online orders can be placed with the National Concerty Hall at:
http://www.nch.ie

Tel. orders to: +353-1-4170000. There will be NO AUTOGRAPHS.

Following the last year's November visit by Neil Armstrong to Dublin,
this year it is apparently Buzz Aldrin's turn. I only found out recently,
but tickets are still available :



BUZZ ALDRIN in DUBLIN :

Eagle Star Face to Face
-----------------------
Thu 18th November, 8:00pm

Another member of that exclusive band of people who escaped earth's
gravity, Buzz Aldrin faces Gay. This year marks the 35th anniversary of
the unprecedented endeavour of man's arrival on the moon and Buzz Aldrin
was one of the first humans to set foot there. The man whose mother's name
was Moon, will talk of his experience in his own unique and entertaining
style.

Special Hospitality Packages, including exclusive after-show meet and
photo opportunities are available. Contact the National Concert Hall box
office for details.

Pricing Details : Eu35, 50, 70,



© 2004 National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland.
Administration: Tel: +353 (0)1 417 0077 Fax: +353 (0)1 417 0078
Email: , http://www.nch.ie
Box Office: Tel: +353 (0)1 417 0000 Fax: +353 (0)1 475 1507


see :
=====
http://www.nch.ie/whatson/concert_de...1&DateId=13132

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 15:39:45 +0100, Martin Postranecky
wrote:

Another member of that exclusive band of people who escaped earth's
gravity, Buzz Aldrin faces Gay

....Waitaminint! Buzz is coming out of the closet??

Pat, these are *your* people. You'd better look into this one...

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM wrote:



Another member of that exclusive band of people who escaped earth's
gravity, Buzz Aldrin faces Gay



...Waitaminint! Buzz is coming out of the closet??

Pat, these are *your* people. You'd better look into this one...


Jesus H. O'Christ! He's going to be demonstrating the new Radio Shack
vibrator, no doubt about it!
Sure, and as if we don't have enough troubles with the British and
drunken pederast priests, that the gay moonman doesn't show up and
further add to our agonies!
It'll be nothing but pain for the Irish, now and forever, if I'm seeing
it right.
Time to suck on some beers, I'd be saying....now don't take that "suck
on" part the wrong way, you damned heathen Texan, that would be a big
blow to me pride, wait...I should be saying that would be a a big
_hurt_ to my pride.
May those who love us love us,
and those who do not love us,
may God turn their hearts,
and if He cannot turn their hearts
may he plant nail bombs in their pubs, so that we shall know them by
their screaming. :-)

Pat