The Legacy of the “First Man”, a Q&A with James R. Hansen

October 15th, 2019

We talked with James R. Hansen, Neil Armstrong’s authorized biographer, about his new book with Purdue University Press Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind.

Dear Neil Armstrong publishes a careful sampling—roughly 400—of the thousands of letters sent to Neil Armstrong from the day of the moon landing to the day of his passing, reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies.

Q: You’ve already written First Man, the definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, what motivated you to take on this new project?

James R. Hansen: I find not just the biography but even more the iconography of the First Man on the Moon endlessly fascinating. “Definitive” is relative. There’s always more to know, to learn, to discover. For First Man, I did not have total access to Neil’s correspondence. For the past four or five years I did have access, in the Purdue Archives, and, as a result, I have a lot more to share with the world about Armstrong.

Q: What do you think is the most commonly misunderstood thing about Neil Armstrong, and how could looking through these letters remedy that misunderstanding?

Hansen: That he was ultra-private, closed off, a near-recluse. The letters show that Neil was not any of those things, not at all. He was very engaged in the world around him, though he had his own particular ways and standards of how he would engage with society and culture.

Q: There are some 75,000 letters stored in the Purdue University Archives and Special collections, what was it like paring it down to the roughly 400 that made it into the book?

Hansen: It was very hard to keep my selection of letters to that size, because almost every letter to Neil, and every reply from him, offered interesting new insights into who he was, and even more so into who we were, in terms of what we thought about our hero and what we wanted from him.

Q: Was there any overarching theme or trend in the letters that surprised you most?

Hansen: Nothing in the letters made me change my basic understanding of Armstrong. What they did, however, is add depth, richness, and resonance to everything I had already come to understand about his as a person and as an icon.

Q: Were there any letters that didn’t make it in the book that still stick out to you?

Hansen: I tried very hard to include all the letters that stuck out to me! Some of the truly crazy letters that were written to him, which included some threatening letters from stalkers and other disturbed individuals, I chose not to include: letters from people in mental asylums, criminal penitentiaries, or people who should have been. Some of the letters were so disturbing that I did not want to present them in the book.

Q: What do you most hope to accomplish with this book?

Hansen: Foremost, I hope people today and forevermore will understand and appreciate Neil Armstrong not just as a global icon but a flesh-and-blood three-dimensional human being, with faults, defects, and limitations, just like all the rest of us. But I also hope the reader stops from time to time to think, “Shame on us.” Shame on us for not being more considerate for the situation of our celebrities and great public figures. Day in and day out, we just ask way too much of them.

You can order Dear Neil Armstrong now, and get 30% off when using the discount code PURDUE30 on the Purdue University Press website.

A Closer Look at Neil Armstrong’s Giant Leaps through New Apollo Exhibit

March 18th, 2019

Courtesy of Purdue News Service

The public will have a chance to get a closer glimpse into Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong’s life through an exhibit presented by Purdue Archives and Special Collections.

The free, public exhibition, “Apollo in the Archives: Selections from the Neil A. Armstrong Papers,” runs through Saturday, Oct. 12 in the Purdue Archives and Special Collections. It is located in Stewart Center inside the Humanities, Social Sciences and Education (HSSE) Library on the fourth floor of the library. The general exhibit hours are 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday. On Saturday, Oct. 12, in celebration of Purdue University’s 2019 Homecoming, the exhibit will be open 8-11 a.m.

The exhibit commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight that landed on the moon – where Armstrong took those famed first steps – and coincides with Purdue University’s July celebration of the moon landing, as well as the University’s sesquicentennial celebration, 150 Years of Giant Leaps.

“Neil wanted his collections to be used for both scholarship and research at his alma mater,” said Tracy Grimm, associate head of Purdue Archives and Special Collections and the Barron Hilton Archivist for Flight and Space Exploration, and curator of the exhibition. “Students and researchers have the unique opportunity to have a behind-the-scenes look at Neil’s life and legacy when they conduct research using Neil’s personal papers. This exhibition offers the public an opportunity to get to know Armstrong and the steps leading up to the Apollo 11 mission through access to Armstrong’s papers.”

The exhibition charts Armstrong’s experiences leading up to Apollo 11 mission, including training and coursework, planning for how and where to land on the moon, the success of the mission itself, and the impact it had on society. The following 11 items represent a portion of the items the public can expect to see on display at “Apollo in the Archives”:

• An Apollo 11 flight suit, worn by Armstrong;
• Armstrong’s NASA astronaut program acceptance letter;
• A script for a skit written by Armstrong and Elliot See Jr., both part of the Gemini 5 backup crew;
• A bag of Gemini 8 capsule personal items;
• LLRV lunar lander research vehicle pilot flight checklist;
• Apollo translunar/transearth trajectory plotting chart from the Apollo 11 mission;
• Lunar dust disturbance on descent memorandum;
• Model of Apollo lunar lander, made by the Grumman Corp;
• Purdue centennial flag flown to the moon on Apollo 11 in 1969;
• Apollo 11 lunar module lunar surface maps; and
• Apollo 11 lunar module lunar ascent card.

In addition to the “Apollo in the Archives,” Purdue’s Ringel Gallery, in partnership with Archives and Special Collections, will present the exhibition “Return to Entry,” which will feature artwork inspired by Armstrong’s archival collection, March 25 to May 11, in the Ringel Gallery, Stewart Center. A reception and a panel discussion will be held at 5:30 on April 4.

For this exhibition, the artists’ challenge was to bring art, engineering, and science together to imagine new horizons informed by archival documents and artifacts contained in the Armstrong Papers and the papers of other astronauts and engineers. This exhibition will feature work by Frances Gallardo, Michael Oatman, and Jennifer Scheuer, who will be part of the panel discussion on April 4.

These exhibitions are one of many events celebrating Purdue’s Sesquicentennial, 150 Years of Giant Leaps. The yearlong celebration is highlighting Purdue’s remarkable history of giant leaps, while focusing on what giant leaps Purdue can take to address the world’s problems. The celebration concludes in October with an astronaut reunion.