First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
James R. Hansen
Biography
[Yes, I saw the movie. Naturally, that meant I had to read the book.]
Suppose you were a baseball fan. Suppose further that you had a favorite player--Babe Ruth, say. You might find yourself reading, and enjoying, a biography of the Babe that was mainly about his playing days. The statistics--the great games--the sixty-homer season--the awards--the "called shot" home run . . . great stuff.
Substitute "space" for baseball, and "Neil Armstrong" for Ruth, and you've got First Man. Aircraft flown--missions accomplished--piloting deeds--feats of analysis under pressure--touch-and-go-emergencies . . . great stuff. To quantify it (a thing which Armstrong would have approved of), First Man is 389 pages long. Armstrong becomes a pilot on page 46; he retires on page 330. In between is a sports bio for nerds.
Within that limitation, First Man is pretty good. It gives a very complete picture of Armstrong's famously reserved and analytical personality. There are some illuminating anecdotes from the people around Armstrong, though nothing to his discredit. It's exciting in the exciting bits. It's (just) sufficiently technical in the technical bits. It's a little bit hero-worshiping. To nobody's surprise, Apollo XI occupies the biggest single chunk.
The portrait of Armstrong that emerges is an interesting and detailed one, too. He seems to have been a man who avoided strong emotions and was uncomfortable in the limelight. He believed that problems have solutions. (As an engineer, I think I recognize a kindred spirit.) If this doesn't make for the most colorful personal story ever told, it's at least an insightful one.
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