First Geek on the Moon

Last saturday, after finishing Red Moon by Michael Cassutt, I finaly started reading Neil Armstrong's biography: First Man. So far (I have only covered only 6% of that 785 pages thick book), so good. It is pretty obvious that Mr Armstrong is in fact a geek, or as he called himself, a nerdy engineer. A few things (aside from the scholar childhood) give it away, like spending a fair amount of his hobby time making models of planes and teaching maths to enlisted crew members, while been a young (21 years old!) naval aviator. Quiet a different image from the popular one projected by movie such as Top Gun. Also, his (quiet honorable) time in the Navy was not the result of a vocation, but driven by the need to paid for his college tuition, from which he graduated in 1955 with a degree in Aerospace Engineering.

Speaking of astronauts, there's an interesting (but short) transcript of an interview of Dick Gordon (Apollo 12 CMP) posted on the CollectSpace.com forum. It'll be no surprise to anyone to learn that the interviewed considere himself the best astronaut to ever fly in space ;-)