Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM
Monday, October 22, 2007 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium
James Hansen
"Why Armstrong Was First: Serendipity, Image, and Iconography in NASA’s Choice for "First Man" on the Moon"
ABSTRACT -- On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch 38-year-old American engineer and astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person ever to step on the surface of another heavenly body. Accompanying Armstrong on the historic mission of Apollo 11 was fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot who, some 17 minutes later after Neil made "one small step," joined his commander, afoot on the Sea of Tranquility.
Thirty-eight years later, controversy and misunderstanding still swirls around the question, "How exactly did NASA decide which of the two astronauts inside the LM would be the first to step onto the Moon?" In this illustrated presentation, Dr. James R. Hansen, a former NASA historian and Armstrong’s authorized biographer, will first describe the engineering career of Neil Armstrong and then set the record straight about what has been called by some observers "the ad hoc way" in which NASA settled who would be first to step on the Moon. In support of Dr. Hansen’s thesis lies exhaustive research into NASA archives, plus countless hours of oral interview spent one-on-one with Armstrong as well as with Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 command module pilot Mike Collins, most of the living Apollo astronauts, and numerous leading NASA officials from the Apollo era.
SPEAKER -- Dr. James R. Hansen is Professor of History and Director of the Honors College at Auburn University in Alabama. He has published nine books and numerous articles covering a wide variety of topics ranging from the early days of aviation, the first nuclear fusion reactors, the Moon landings, to the environmental history of golf courses.
His most recent book, First Man (Simon & Schuster, 2005), is the first and only authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, first man on the Moon. The book spent three weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and has garnered major book awards, including the American Astronautical Society’s Emme Prize for Astronautical Literature, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Outstanding Book Award, and CHOICE magazine’s Outstanding Academic Book of 2006. First Man has also been published in the United Kingdom and Japan and will soon appear in Chinese, German, French, and Croatian.
In 1995 NASA nominated his book Spaceflight Revolution for a Pulitzer Prize, the only time that NASA has ever nominated a book for a Pulitzer. His book From the Ground Up (1988) won the AIAA’s History Book Award. Hansen’s scholarship has also been honored with the Robert Goddard Award from the National Space Club and Certificates of Distinction from the Air Force Historical Foundation.
Dr. Hansen and a team of graduate students are working on a six-volume history of aerodynamics and the airplane in America.
At Auburn, Dr. Hansen teaches courses in the history of science and technology and aerospace history. His teaching awards include the Teaching Excellence Award in the Humanities and the Outstanding Teacher in the Core Curriculum. In 2005, he was inducted into the College of Liberal Arts’ Academy of Teaching and Outstanding Scholars.