The Moon Belongs to the People

"A quiet, private man, at heart an engineer and crack test pilot, Mr. Armstrong made history on July 20, 1969, as the commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the mission that culminated the Soviet-American space race in the 1960s. President John F. Kennedy had committed the nation 'to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.' It was done with more than five months to spare."

In The New York Times, John Noble Wilford writes an obituary for Neil Armstrong, the first human being to walk on the moon.