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First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong | 
 enlarge | Author: James R. Hansen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $6.99
You Save: $23.01 (77%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 23286
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 784
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.7
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.450092
ASIN: B001063KL4
Publication Date: October 18, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch thirty-eight-year-old American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person to step on the surface of another heavenly body. Perhaps no words in human history became better known than those few he uttered at that historic moment. In a penetrating exploration of American hero worship, Hansen addresses the complex legacy of the First Man, as an astronaut and an individual.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Armstrong's Innerspace (almost) August 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For a man whose name rightfully resides in the rarified company of Columbus, Galileo, Copernicus, Cortes and de Gama, James Hansen's exhaustive biography of Neil Armstrong unspools a painstaking, sometimes wonkish narrative of how this extraordinarily talented, driven and devout man willingly exchanged his deeply cherished anonymity to become the most famous human of the last century.
As an eight-year old watching Armstrong and Aldrin's first steps in 1969, I had every expectation that nearly four decades later I would be writing this review from some long-established and thriving U.S. lunar colony - a vision that was quickly extinguished through the convergence of national space fatique, severe under funding and the somewhat schizophrenic, sclerotic aspirations of NASA over the past quarter century - unfortunate developments that only serve to make Armstrong's unique story and experience all the more compelling.
If you're looking for deep, metaphysical musings on how his lunar celebrity transformed both himself and the world at large - keep browsing. First Man is a walking tour through the guts of the Gemini and Apollo programs prefaced by deep immersion into his Ohio upbringing. Yes, the acronyms and jargon are a little thick but at the end of journey what emerges is a portrait of an intensely private man who remains just that. With just a nod to his place in history, Armstrong provides a much needed reminder of America's potential in microcosm - smart, fallible, unflinching, determined - and oh yeah, he also took a little trip.
A fascinating read.
One Giant Book For Mankind May 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"First Man" is the long awaited authorized biography of Neil Armstrong. The book is a significant work in the body of aerospace history, as Armstrong has consciously lived out of the public eye for most of his life since the Apollo 11 mission. To say the book is detailed is an understatement (did you know that Neil's childhood dog was named "Tippy"?), but James Hansen paints a vivid portrait of the man and his life with exquisite precision. The book is stunning for its depth of information, but is also very readable on a visceral, human level. The net result is a work demonstrating both great academic rigor and the essential character of the first man on the moon.
The book, while keeping Apollo 11 as the center of its arc, does not dwell exclusively on Armstrong's role in the space program. I was pleased to read about his family and personal relationships: understanding these helps the reader to understand who Armstrong is and how he got to be that way. I was found the account of his relationship with his mother, Viola, enlightening, and appreciated the recounting of his role in the Korean war as a very young aviator. Understanding his later successes (and failures) in the greater context of his personal and professional life is one of the true successes of this book. I was, of course, transfixed by the account of the interpersonal relationships between Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, the three "amiable strangers" of Apollo 11.
Certainly the accounting of Armstrong's test pilot and spaceflight endeavors is of primary interest to anyone likely to read the book, but I was even more impressed than I expected to be by Armstrong's post-Apollo choices. I am especially struck by the parallels between Armstrong and Charles Lindbergh as Armstrong has aged. While still a vital man, Armstrong has willfully chosen to live his life modestly without relying on his fame as the first moonwalker for either ego or income gratification.
This book is by no means a light read, but anyone with an interest in aerospace history should make this book a priority: it is astonishingly well documented, well written, and compellingly told. My earliest childhood memory is watching Armstrong walk on the moon; only now do I really understand and appreciate the "First Man" fully.
This is THE definitive biography about Neil Armstrong January 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Simply put, there is no finer book in print that helps us understand the modern-day Christopher Columbus of our times - Neil Armstrong. Not only will you come to better understand the man, the First Man, but you will also walk away with a tremendous appreciation for the Apollo program generally and the Apollo 11 mission specifically. Budget some serious time to get through this book but add it to your list of reads for 2008.
Great Biography of My Boyhood Idol December 26, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
James Hansen's authorized biography of pilot/engineer/astronaut Neil Armstrong is a well written and long awaited in-depth look at a man who has led a truly extraordinary life. His detailed accounts of Armstrong's roots, interests, loves, successes and tragedies made a captive reading experience for me. It was Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 journey that inspired my lifelong interest in spaceflight.
I feel for him in his pursuit to maintain as much of a personal life as possible over the years. NASA and the space program may be owned by the taxpayers, but it's human participants are not. Neil has recognized this more than many others have.
An excellent biography. I highly recommend it.
A Name That Will Remembered Through The Ages November 19, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Somewhere in my reading, I remember someone who said that there is only one name from the 20th Century that is guaranteed to be remembered 1,000 years from now; the name of the first man to step foot on another planet, Neil Armstrong.
I was alive when Apollo 11 landed and Armstrong made his historic step but, at 11 months old, far from old enough to remember the event. Despite that, though, the events of July 20, 1969 are so much a part of historical memory that it seems like we were all there. There's always been one mystery, though, and that's been the man who actually stepped off the Eagle and onto lunar soil for the first time. Now, the mystery is, at least somewhat, solved thanks to the publication of an fascinating biography of the First Man On The Moon, titled, appropriately enough, First Man.
James Hansen, who was given extraordinary access to Armstrong himself as well as his family and personal records, tells a story that stretches from Armstrong's boyhood in Ohio, to Korea, to his years as a test pilot, all of which were mere training for his ultimate destiny. In addition to a mass (though not overwhelmingly so) of technical data about everything from the X-15 flights that Armstrong flew at Edwards AFB to the Gemini and Apollo programs, Hansen paints, as best he can, a portrait of an intensely private man who was thrust, willingly or otherwise, into an intense spotlight comparable to that of his boyhood hero Charles Lindbergh.
Like Lindbergh, Armstrong was and is, it seems, the reluctant hero. Hansen consistently quotes him as giving equal credit for the achievements of Apollo 11 to his crew mates and the men on the ground and in the factories who built the Apollo program from the ground up.
The most compelling parts of the book, of course, come when Hansen tells the story of the landing and first sojurn onto the lunar surface, including excerpts from recordings of conversations among the crew that were never broadcast publicly. After that, somewhat disappointingly, the book comes to a very quick close. The story rushes through the post-Apollo 11 euphoria and Armstrong's short involvement as a NASA administrator and offers vignettes showing the difficulties that he had coping with the public's fascination with him, some of which was obsessive to say the least.
All in all, though, First Man is an excellent read, and, as the official biographer to the First Man on the Moon, Hansen has done a fabulous job with the task that Armstrong assigned to him.
If you have any interest in the history of the American space program at all, this book is a must-read.
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