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    First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
    First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
    First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
    Audiobook (abridged)9 hours

    First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

    Written by James R. Hansen

    Narrated by Boyd Gaines

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Now a major motion picture, this is the first—and only—definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, the man whose “one small step” changed history.

    When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over fifty hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this “magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.

    In this “compelling and nuanced portrait” (Chicago Tribune) filled with revelations, Hansen vividly recreates Armstrong’s career in flying, from his seventy-eight combat missions as a naval aviator flying over North Korea to his formative trans-atmospheric flights in the rocket-powered X-15 to his piloting Gemini VIII to the first-ever docking in space. For a pilot who cared more about flying to the Moon than he did about walking on it, Hansen asserts, Armstrong’s storied vocation exacted a dear personal toll, paid in kind by his wife and children. For the near-fifty years since the Moon landing, rumors have swirled around Armstrong concerning his dreams of space travel, his religious beliefs, and his private life.

    A penetrating exploration of American hero worship, Hansen addresses the complex legacy of the First Man, as an astronaut and as an individual. “First Man burrows deep into Armstrong’s past and present…What emerges is an earnest and brave man” (Houston Chronicle) who will forever be known as history’s most famous space traveler.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 18, 2005
    ISBN9780743554541
    Author

    James R. Hansen

    James R. Hansen is a professor emeritus of history at Auburn University. A former historian for NASA, Hansen is the author of twelve books on the history of aerospace and a two-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in History. His 1995 book Spaceflight Revolution was nominated for the Pulitzer by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the only time NASA ever nominated a book for the prize. He serves as coproducer for the upcoming major motion picture First Man, which is based on his New York Times bestselling biography of Neil Armstrong. Hansen lives in Auburn, Alabama.

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    Reviews for First Man

    4/5

    120 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I confess, I had this sitting in the queue and was going to get to it eventually, but the debut of the movie made me move this up. I still haven’t seen the movie. But what can you say about Neil Armstrong. An American icon and the face of the space program – or specifically, the moon shot.This is a very good biography that doesn’t seem to pull punches even though it’s authorized. It talks about the controversies, the misgivings, the warts and all.Or mostly – I’d have to see another biography to judge that.But it’s all here, from Neil’s childhood to his military service to engineering career to his life as an astronaut. Plus, the tragic loss of his child, and his tangles with other astronauts and Chuck Yeager, and his eventual divorce.One interesting insight is that while they were history-makers, the three astronauts of Apollo 11 were nothing more than cordial strangers. You would think the shared experience would pull them together, but it doesn’t seem to have done so, and partly because of Armstrong’s distance from everyone, all the time. (By the way, the author pulls from other bios and autobios, and Mike Collins’ quotes makes me want to read his book now).The book also tells everybody’s side in recounting the controversies, but of course it largely sides with Armstrong.It was a really good book. Might have been one or two chapters too long, though.For more of my reviews, go to Ralphsbooks.
    • 5/5
      I read this in preparation for the film that’s coming out. I’ve read a lot of books about the Apollo missions and this one measures up to my favorites. It’s been a fun read. Thanks to the author. And thanks to to the space program.
    • 4/5
      A boy from Ohio fascinated by planes and how they are engineered one day becomes the most famous man on the planet by stepping onto the Moon. First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong is the authorized biography of the Apollo 11 commander by James R. Hansen.Hansen centers the biography on the Apollo 11 mission, which from the decision to name Neil Armstrong commander to his return home. The first quarter and the final quarter of the biography literally bookends those approximately eight months with the former detailing Armstrong’s childhood passion for flight that led to his career as a test pilot then astronaut and the later detailing how the modest Armstrong adjusted—or did not—to worldwide fame that only lessened in everyday life as he grew older. Given the number of pages that Hansen concentrated on Armstrong’s time with NASA, there are a lot of vehicle abbreviations that need to be negotiated when reading but Hansen does a good job in make sure readers learn the terms however if one doesn’t pay attention, you can miss something and get confused. Yet this book is a fantastic read thanks to Hansen’s interviews of Armstrong and his extensive research into the Apollo 11 logs which flesh out those momentous July days for those not alive to experience them.First Man is a very well written biography that blends NASA archived logs, author interviews of Armstrong, and interviews of fellow Gemini and Apollo astronauts.
    • 4/5
      Interesting, but not as enjoyable as I hoped. The chapters on the Gemini and Apollo missions were the big highlights. Most of the rest was a slog.
    • 5/5
      This is a biography of the first man to walk on the Moon, which inspired the recent film of the same name (which I watched while reading this, and enjoyed). Armstrong was wary of potential chroniclers of his life, due to negative experiences at the hands of some journalists and other unscrupulous people in the heady immediate post-Apollo XI period, so steered clear of potential interviewers or biographers until James Hansen was able to persuade him to be interviewed extensively for this biography in 2005. Hansen says that Armstrong did not seek to influence his writing or conclusions, thus this is quite a rounded biography of the great astronaut, an authorised biography in the sense that it had access to family details and personal accounts from family members, but also maintains some critical distance from his subject.It is quite a long biography, and also quite dry in a few places for most readers, with many technical details of various aircraft and early spacecraft in which he flew; though Armstrong would have welcomed this as he saw himself primarily as an engineer whose life was about resolving problems in this field. That said, much research has been done on his family background, which has been traced back ten generations to the first Armstrongs to emigrate from Scotland to America in the early 18th century. Neil was born in a small town in Ohio in 1930. He was fascinated by flying from an early age, and is quoted as saying that even in elementary school his intention was to be an aircraft designer. He gained a student pilot's license when he turned 16. He became a naval aviator and was taking part in the Korean War (including nearly parachuting into a minefield) in his very early 20s. He then became a test pilot, testing increasingly sophisticated aircraft that could fly higher and faster than ever before. This was a very dangerous business - far more test pilots died in flight than ever have in the whole history of spaceflight from the 1960s to date.Neil applied for astronaut selection in 1962, shortly after the tragic death of his two year old daughter Karen from a brain tumour. Before the Apollo programme, he was command pilot in 1966 for Gemini VIII, in which, on the way back from performing the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, he and co-pilot David Scott, went tumbling away end to end, potentially disastrously, before regaining control. This wasn't the end of Neil's brushes with death; while flying a lunar landing research vehicle in 1968, he had to parachute out seconds before it blew up. The story of Apollo XI is too well known to need recounting in this review, but suffice it to say that Armstrong's personal unflappability and resourcefulness demonstrated why he was absolutely the right person to command this first and successful attempt to land on the moon and return safely to Earth.(As an aside on the Apollo programme, I have often thought that Apollo 8, that flew at Christmas 1968, should be better known, as its astronauts - including Jim Lovell who later commanded the ill-fated Apollo 13 in 1970 - were the first humans to leave Earth’s gravitational field and actually travel to the moon's vicinity, and orbit it successfully).After the storming success of Apollo XI, the rest of Armstrong's life was, in a sense, perforce an anti-climax. After a brief period as a NASA administrator, he spent a decade in academia and was headhunted for the boards of many companies. He spread himself too thinly, and in the end this told on his marriage, he and his wife Janet splitting in 1990 after 34 years together. He kept up his support for the space programme, such as it was, and objected, albeit politely and in a restrained manner, to the Obama administration's regrettable decision to cancel NASA's plans to return men to the Moon by 2020. Astronauts, being resilient and in peak physical condition, tend to lead long lives and Armstrong was generally in fine condition until his death from complications after heart surgery in August 2012 (slightly mysteriously, after he had been expecting to make a full recovery). His place as a giant in the history of exploration and engineering is assured, and even those who know nothing about spaceflight would recognise his famous words as he stepped onto the Moon's surface. But he never considered himself an explorer: “What I attended to was the progressive development of flight machinery. My exploration came totally as a by-product of that. I flew to the Moon not so much to go there, but as part of developing the systems that would allow it to happen.” He did that, of course, but so much more.
    • 4/5
      A comprehensive biography of the first man to step onto the lunar surface on 20 July 1969. As the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong. First Man is authoritative. Hansen was chosen by Armstrong as his biographer in 2002, and the book quotes the astronaut extensively. The book gives you a good feel for the reluctant hero.
    • 5/5
      Great book... absolutely loved the audio clips from NASA in the narrative!
    • 4/5
      A comprehensive biography of the first man to step onto the lunar surface on 20 July 1969. Hansen’s interviews with the astronaut’s family and key participants as well as his studies of flight logs and NASA archives serve to define not only the man but also the legacy of the Space Age. In these pages, the author explores the life of the man who, as a child, dreamed of flying and, as an adult, made the dream come true as a Navy fighter pilot, a test pilot, and, finally, as an astronaut chosen by history for the singular first that shall forever highlight the career of this famous space traveler whose name will never pass into oblivion.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      As the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, this book has the usual faults and virtues of such an exercise. On one hand, due to access to private materials, significant myths are debunked about the subject. On the other, one can sometimes wonder how forthright the author is about what he is thinking about his subject. In between tracking the choices that led to Armstrong becoming the first man to step onto the Moon, and the technology that was involved, the point that crystallized the book for me came late, when Armstrong admitted that while his flying was not very intuitive, he made up for this with more precision. This admission could describe much of the rest of Armstrong’s life, as he seemed to function best in structured environments where problems could be dealt with in isolation. Unfortunately, this was not an approach that served Armstrong well either in his first marriage, where he seems to have given too little back in terms of emotional support and time, or in post-astronaut life in general, where the man’s iconic status (and generally closed personality) seemed to lead to, at best, general awkwardness.This also offers some insight into the resentment that the community of military test pilots seemed to have for the man (a running topic in this book), in that Armstrong’s desire to keep his own counsel and avoid personal conflict could be seen as arrogance and his flying style might be seen as awkward by men who were more intuitive fliers. This, of course, discounts the Darwinian drive for prestige and advancement between the American military and civilian aerospace efforts, which the civilian side was probably always going to win, with Armstrong probably being the leading civilian test pilot in the NACA/NASA complex (not to mention being a good organization man). Hansen, being a NASA man himself, might not best placed to comment on this issue. I might be unfair in this instance, as Hansen does seem to deal forthrightly with how the crew of Apollo 11 was anything but a band of brothers (which was seen as unusual at the time); possibly a comment on Armstrong's leadership skills.
    • 4/5
      An amazing book which if filled with technical detail as well as anecdotes about Neil Armstrong. Most of the excruciating detail could be better served as an appendix, but overall an interesting read, if you can get past the first 150 pages. The book explains some of Mr. Armstrong's "recluse behavior", which I for one never thought he practiced and admired him for not embracing fame, especially at this age of reality TV and other shameful displays of humanity. Several pages of this book are dedicated to misconceptions about the moon landing, especially those circulating in cyber space, which alone is worth the price of the book.The book moves from excruciating technical details to moving personal stories, all important to help us understand the subject at hand. As in any history book / biography the most interesting parts are the small anecdotes we never will hear.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed the history behind the moon landing and Neil Armstrong. I remember the moon landing, but never knew the man. All the details were fascinating, and made for a good flow through his life, but also seemed tedius at times. At the same time, I'd like to know a little more of his life outside of his career and how that influenced him. Some of the narration seemed weak. James Hansen obviously tried to bring the story full circle at the end, but the feeling was almost contrived (I won't spoil it...).
    • 3/5
      This is an authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, which means that Armstrong actively participated in the preparation of this book, making himself available for interviews and allowing others close to him to share their insights as well. As such, there is a lot of wealth in the details of this book, drawn from a wealth of interviews and primary documents. In fact, the author consistently points out when opinions in the book are drawn from various personal interviews.As one might imagine, however, this honesty can lead to a rather clumsy narrative. And the narrative of this biography, unfortunately, is at times clumsy. Hansen may be a first rate researcher (it appears so) and he may have a depth of knowledge of the history of the space program (he is, after all, a full history professor at Auburn University). But he is not a first-rate writer or biographer. Time and again he overexamines certain things (like Armstrong's military career); time and again the narrative of this exciting story stumbles along, tripping over itself.Armstrong is often compared to Charles Lindbergh, and as I read this book, I found it impossible to not compare it with A. Scott Berg's excellent Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Lindbergh. Hansen's biography pales to Berg's in any comparison, from the incorporation of the key flight (Berg manages to keep the transatlantic flight to a manageable and appropriate portion of his book; in First Man Apollo 11 is about a quarter of the book). Berg delves into the effects of Lindbergh's flight on the rest of his life; Hansen skips through Armstrong's subsequent life (all 35 years of it) in less than 100 pages, or in roughly the same amount of space he describes the lunar voyage/landing component of Apollo 13.Still, it is unlikely that this biography will be exceeded during Armstrong's lifetime, and it may take some years after his death before a full-scale attempt is made again to tell this story. So it is an important book and a necessary resource in the field of space history.
    • 5/5
      What a fascinating read. If you remember watching those grainy black & white TV pictures in 1969 and can still feel the excitement, read this - it will bring it all back. And it convincingly debunks and refutes the ridiculous notion that the heroic adventure never took place.
    • 3/5
      Has some juicy space gossip. Armstrong dishes the dirt on why Chuck Yeager crashed his jet in the film The Right Stuff...apparently Yeager didn't use simulators and knew not how to orient his jet in the thin atmosphere. The book does look into every nook and cranny of Armstrong's personal history, including lots of boring stuff.