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One Giant Leap: Neil Armstrong's Stellar American Journey
On July 20, 1969, the whole world stopped. It was the day when a man who grew up on a farm without electricity announced, "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." But the world never knew how truly dangerous this quest was.
Armstrong and his crew's extraordinary mission was a long, complex chain of events, at least 50 percent likely to snap at one delicate point or another and end in failure or worse. As the mission unfolded, those in the know about the daunting task the astronauts faced held their breath. The President of the United States, Richard Nixon, ordered their eulogy prepared for him to read on national television.
In this, the first-ever biography of Neil Armstrong, Leon Wagener explores the man whose walk on the moon is still compared to humankind's progenitor's crawl out of the primordial ooze---and whose retreat back to a farm in his native Ohio soon after the last ticker-tape confetti fell has left him looked upon as a reclusive hermit ever since.
This is the true story of a national hero whose lifelong quest to walk on the moon truly mirrors our best selves. He's an American who daily braved incredible danger over a long career and finally broke free of Earth's surly bonds, achieving what seemed impossible and proving forever that man can reach for the stars and succeed.
Armstrong and his crew's extraordinary mission was a long, complex chain of events, at least 50 percent likely to snap at one delicate point or another and end in failure or worse. As the mission unfolded, those in the know about the daunting task the astronauts faced held their breath. The President of the United States, Richard Nixon, ordered their eulogy prepared for him to read on national television.
In this, the first-ever biography of Neil Armstrong, Leon Wagener explores the man whose walk on the moon is still compared to humankind's progenitor's crawl out of the primordial ooze---and whose retreat back to a farm in his native Ohio soon after the last ticker-tape confetti fell has left him looked upon as a reclusive hermit ever since.
This is the true story of a national hero whose lifelong quest to walk on the moon truly mirrors our best selves. He's an American who daily braved incredible danger over a long career and finally broke free of Earth's surly bonds, achieving what seemed impossible and proving forever that man can reach for the stars and succeed.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 31, 2018
I thoroughly enjoyed this! Highly recommended. A tremendous amount of info that I never knew and very readable.
September 11, 2008
This book tells Neil Armstrong's story. He always dreamed about going to the moon. After he accomplished his dream, then he just wanted to be treated like a regular person. This book covers such a wide range of events, so it's really hard to summarize it. One theme is that Neil Armstrong believed that space exploration would be able to bring mankind together, maybe to the point of ending all wars. Neil was welcomed as a hero, even in the USSR. However, to a certain extent, he was frustrated in space exploration's inabilty to bring people together like he had hoped. Neil's life had many adventurous ups, and also its share of downs. His young daughter died of a brain tumor, his good neighbor Ed White was burned to death in Apollo 1, and he divorced his wife of 30 years in the 1990's. Through everything, Neil never forgot his rural Ohio roots or his love for flying.
February 10, 2015
Sort of a strange book. A glowing biography of Neil Armstrong that strongly dissuades the "Neil is a recluse hermit" angle of the past 40+ years... but the author clearly didn't score an interview. An incredibly detailed, obviously well researched piece of work... that has multiple typos ("Layfayette," "Tranquillity" Base are two that jumped out at me for being repeated numerous times). Almost exhausting levels of detail but paragraphs don't necessarily have any logical flow from one to the next. The many digressions do much to add cultural context and allow the viewer to really KNOW what it was like to be at that crazy heroes ball, down to the eats, but careening wildly from topic to topic leads to some "wait, what?" moments.
Despite that, the story he's telling is a damned good one, so the telling itself is elevated by the tale.
Despite that, the story he's telling is a damned good one, so the telling itself is elevated by the tale.
August 19, 2019
One Giant Leap: Neil Armstrong's Stellar American Journey is an enjoyably well written, meticulously researched biography of Neil Armstrong that focuses more on the man than the astronaut.
It begins with a small boy on a farm with no electricity and ends with a man famous worldwide for walking on the moon.
But what happened before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and what occurred in the years after, is what sets this book apart from other space obsessed biographies.
From this book I learned Neil seemed inevitably fated for spaceflight from an early age. Already obsessed with aviation at just six years old, his father spontaneously bought his first fifteen minute flight in a Ford Trimotor and history was officially set in stone.
He devoured books on mathematics, physics, engineering- read every book on astronomy and aviation his small-town library contained and easily surpassed his teachers on the subjects he was interested in. He saved every penny of his allowance and took on odd jobs to afford flying lessons for nine dollars an hour and had his flying license before he graduated high school.
At age 17 in 1947, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was the second person in his family to attend college. His college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan which meant two years of study, followed by two years of flight training and one year of service in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, then completion of the final two years of his bachelor's degree, but before he could complete his education he was called for duty because of the Korean War.
Armstrong saw action in the Korean War and flew 78 missions. He was assigned to VF-51, an all-jet squadron, becoming its youngest officer, and made his first flight in a jet, a Grumman F9F Panther. His squadron was the first to make jet carrier landings.
After the Navy he went back to college where he met his first wife Janet Shearon and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in January 1955.
Now his life as a test pilot, husband, and father of three began in the desert at Edwards Air Force Base for NACA. Edwards Air Force Base is where he piloted over 200 different models of aircraft and flew his first rocket powered aircraft, the Bell X-1B.
Unfortunately, the peak of Armstrong's career as a test pilot coincides with the tragic death of his two year old daughter Karen from a malignant brain tumor. Greif hit the family hard, but where some shutdown- Armstrong accelerated, breaking flight records. He accepted a job from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it was established on October 1, 1958, and flew the experimental spaceplane X-15 which untimely paved his way to the Gemini program and then the Voyage to the Moon.
After the moon had been walked, an exhausting pomp and pony show commenced to the political advantage of President Nixon. The astronauts and their family were dressed up and paraded globally.
They were wine and dined and stalked relentlessly.
Walking on the moon meant you belonged to the masses.
Armstrong resigned from NASA in 1971 and began teaching Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he and three other highly regarded scientist/engineers created the Institute of Engineering and Medicine, with Armstrong as director. The institute was to study the possibility they foresaw in the melding of space science and medicine.
Fun fact: the modern Ventricular Assist Device is based off the device used to pump fluids through Armstrong's space suit to control body temperature in zero gravity. Portable Oxygen tanks were also modeled off an Apollo device.
Despite leaving the limelight and actively avoiding the subject of the moon landing, the world's insatiable hunger for news about the first man to walk on the moon fueled the relentless pursuit by the media of a man seeking a simple life.
It begins with a small boy on a farm with no electricity and ends with a man famous worldwide for walking on the moon.
But what happened before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, and what occurred in the years after, is what sets this book apart from other space obsessed biographies.
From this book I learned Neil seemed inevitably fated for spaceflight from an early age. Already obsessed with aviation at just six years old, his father spontaneously bought his first fifteen minute flight in a Ford Trimotor and history was officially set in stone.
He devoured books on mathematics, physics, engineering- read every book on astronomy and aviation his small-town library contained and easily surpassed his teachers on the subjects he was interested in. He saved every penny of his allowance and took on odd jobs to afford flying lessons for nine dollars an hour and had his flying license before he graduated high school.
At age 17 in 1947, Armstrong began studying aeronautical engineering at Purdue University. He was the second person in his family to attend college. His college tuition was paid for under the Holloway Plan which meant two years of study, followed by two years of flight training and one year of service in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, then completion of the final two years of his bachelor's degree, but before he could complete his education he was called for duty because of the Korean War.
Armstrong saw action in the Korean War and flew 78 missions. He was assigned to VF-51, an all-jet squadron, becoming its youngest officer, and made his first flight in a jet, a Grumman F9F Panther. His squadron was the first to make jet carrier landings.
After the Navy he went back to college where he met his first wife Janet Shearon and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in January 1955.
Now his life as a test pilot, husband, and father of three began in the desert at Edwards Air Force Base for NACA. Edwards Air Force Base is where he piloted over 200 different models of aircraft and flew his first rocket powered aircraft, the Bell X-1B.
Unfortunately, the peak of Armstrong's career as a test pilot coincides with the tragic death of his two year old daughter Karen from a malignant brain tumor. Greif hit the family hard, but where some shutdown- Armstrong accelerated, breaking flight records. He accepted a job from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it was established on October 1, 1958, and flew the experimental spaceplane X-15 which untimely paved his way to the Gemini program and then the Voyage to the Moon.
After the moon had been walked, an exhausting pomp and pony show commenced to the political advantage of President Nixon. The astronauts and their family were dressed up and paraded globally.
They were wine and dined and stalked relentlessly.
Walking on the moon meant you belonged to the masses.
Armstrong resigned from NASA in 1971 and began teaching Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he and three other highly regarded scientist/engineers created the Institute of Engineering and Medicine, with Armstrong as director. The institute was to study the possibility they foresaw in the melding of space science and medicine.
Fun fact: the modern Ventricular Assist Device is based off the device used to pump fluids through Armstrong's space suit to control body temperature in zero gravity. Portable Oxygen tanks were also modeled off an Apollo device.
Despite leaving the limelight and actively avoiding the subject of the moon landing, the world's insatiable hunger for news about the first man to walk on the moon fueled the relentless pursuit by the media of a man seeking a simple life.
October 3, 2018
From a young boy growing up on a farm with no electricity to the man standing on the surface of the moon declaring, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” this is the story of the life of Neil Armstrong.
Using NASA files and interviewing the astronaut’s family and friends [but apparently not the man himself], the author explores Armstrong’s life of adventure and achievement and includes some rare photographs to accompany the text. His narrative touches on the already-known, buttressed with insights from those close to Armstrong, as it reveals the life of the man whose story is one of a national hero who braved incredible danger to achieve what seemed monumentally impossible . . . except to the astronauts who dared to fly into space.
Recommended.
Using NASA files and interviewing the astronaut’s family and friends [but apparently not the man himself], the author explores Armstrong’s life of adventure and achievement and includes some rare photographs to accompany the text. His narrative touches on the already-known, buttressed with insights from those close to Armstrong, as it reveals the life of the man whose story is one of a national hero who braved incredible danger to achieve what seemed monumentally impossible . . . except to the astronauts who dared to fly into space.
Recommended.
April 25, 2025
Okay...
For one, the author jumps around a lot, making the story difficult to follow. And two, it's full of false information. The author seems to believe every single newspaper headline he came across and ate up everything he was told during interviews without doing proper research. In First Man by James R. Hansen, Armstrong basically says that everything about his childhood that's written in One Giant Leap is fake.
For one, the author jumps around a lot, making the story difficult to follow. And two, it's full of false information. The author seems to believe every single newspaper headline he came across and ate up everything he was told during interviews without doing proper research. In First Man by James R. Hansen, Armstrong basically says that everything about his childhood that's written in One Giant Leap is fake.
Read
August 3, 2011This is an addictive book - it gives a great perspective of what the original moon landing astronauts, and of course, Armstrong most particularly, went through behind the scenes as they prepared for their historic venture. And then of course the aftermath, which is to say the rest of their lives, dealing with the simplistic perspectives of themselves by others and with the impulse of Washington politicos to trot them out to lend credibility to various agendas.
Nixon, in particular, did everything in his power to milk the coincidental timeline of his presidency and the moonshot for every gram of public shine, then immediately demanded a slashed NASA budget once the initial landing was achieved. Of course, he used Armstrong has his own personal arm candy at public events. One more pile of anecdotal evidence for his nickname "tricky Dick".
Armstrong is obviously a complicated and talented man, and this book provides the detail that fills out what many of us already knew - that he is a private person who wishes to keep a good measure of his privacy, for the sake of sanity and a kind of nobility that other "hero" figures are not willing to accede to. Armstrong is no applause junkie, but neither is he a stick-in-the-mud bore. He shares his self willingly with causes and with others that share a sense of the adventure that drove him to achieve his dream.
Nixon, in particular, did everything in his power to milk the coincidental timeline of his presidency and the moonshot for every gram of public shine, then immediately demanded a slashed NASA budget once the initial landing was achieved. Of course, he used Armstrong has his own personal arm candy at public events. One more pile of anecdotal evidence for his nickname "tricky Dick".
Armstrong is obviously a complicated and talented man, and this book provides the detail that fills out what many of us already knew - that he is a private person who wishes to keep a good measure of his privacy, for the sake of sanity and a kind of nobility that other "hero" figures are not willing to accede to. Armstrong is no applause junkie, but neither is he a stick-in-the-mud bore. He shares his self willingly with causes and with others that share a sense of the adventure that drove him to achieve his dream.
November 7, 2011
The beginning of this book, the part that talks about when he was a kid, was kind of boring and was a slow start. I liked the rest of the book a lot though. It was interesting to see other people I have read about mentioned in passing. I also really liked reading about how he took some of the inventions from the space program and used them for medical applications and research.
This book made me think a lot. It made me curious about what he thought about the way he was portrayed in the book. The author seemed to use transcripts, articles, and interviews with other people to come up with all of the information. According to some googling, it looks like "Wagener, lacking cooperation from Armstrong, did have Armstrong's permission to conduct interviews with those close to him."
The book also made me think about what I know about history and what I don't. This was the first time that I have ever heard anything good about Nixon and Reagan. Makes me wonder what I have been reading and if I need to be more rounded. There were plenty of not so good implications about Nixon in this book as well.
Also, the other thing it made me realize that, even though now I think the space program is the coolest thing ever, I wonder if I would have felt so good about it before the moon landing. I guess I would have to be about 35 years older for me to know for sure.
This book made me think a lot. It made me curious about what he thought about the way he was portrayed in the book. The author seemed to use transcripts, articles, and interviews with other people to come up with all of the information. According to some googling, it looks like "Wagener, lacking cooperation from Armstrong, did have Armstrong's permission to conduct interviews with those close to him."
The book also made me think about what I know about history and what I don't. This was the first time that I have ever heard anything good about Nixon and Reagan. Makes me wonder what I have been reading and if I need to be more rounded. There were plenty of not so good implications about Nixon in this book as well.
Also, the other thing it made me realize that, even though now I think the space program is the coolest thing ever, I wonder if I would have felt so good about it before the moon landing. I guess I would have to be about 35 years older for me to know for sure.
November 30, 2015
One Giant Leap is the most inspiring book to read to children. As an aspiring teacher, I will motivate my students all that I can in every way possible. At the end of this book, I love the fact that it shows the children that Neil was once just a kid like them. Even though he took that first step and made history, in his head he will always be the little boy who just flew paper/model airplanes for fun.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2012
My review at Bookreporter.com:
http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/o...
http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/o...
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews