Neil Armstrong (August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012)

In honour of Neil Armstrong who died yesterday, I thought I would blip a model of the Saturn v rocket (in the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street) which took Apollo 11 to the moon, containing Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins.

Broadcast on live TV to a world-wide audience, Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface and described the event as "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 effectively ended the Space Race and fulfilled a national goal proposed in 1961 by the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy in a speech before the United States Congress, "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

As President Obama said in his Twitter account, "Neil Armstrong was a hero not just of his time, but of all time."