First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (review)

Astronaut autobiographies and memoirs have proliferated since the 1970s. For vicarious astronauts like myself, these books have made for enjoyable reading, notwithstanding the variable quality. In the last decade, writers have started to produce biographies of astronauts, none of them scholarly—until now. James Hansen's Neil Armstrong biography is smoothly written for a broad audience, but it has a very sound foundation in primary research, interviews, and the secondary literature. Beyond the form of the popular biography, which does not lend itself to extended historiographical discussions, Hansen's only concession to the conventions of trade publishing is the unfortunate use of line citations in the back of the book instead of superscript numbers in the text, a format presumably dictated by the publisher.

As an "authorized" biography, First Man might naturally be regarded with suspicion. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Hansen was free to write the interpretative sections as he wished. Of course, it helps that Armstrong is a bona fide American hero, without any important skeletons in his closet. Yet Hansen addresses private matters that the very private Armstrong would rather not discuss, such as his young daughter's cancer death in 1962 and his divorce from his first wife. As one reads this book, it becomes apparent that only an authorized biography could have done justice to Armstrong's nonpublic and even his public life. Otherwise, neither the astronaut himself nor his ex-wife and his sister—both very important interviewees—would have been accessible. It is improbable that any other author will ever be able to penetrate more deeply into the psyche of the enigmatic first man on the moon.

A strength of the book for historians of technology is that Hansen takes Armstrong's flying career very seriously, notably his period as an engineering test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics/ National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Edwards Air Force Base in California from 1955 to 1962. Armstrong was a Purdue engineering graduate with a deep commitment to aerodynamics and control systems, and he became expert in the new area of flight simulation as it was developed at Edwards. He was also an excellent pilot, one of the select few to fly the X-15 rocket plane. It is a further strength that Hansen reconstructs in detail Armstrong's distinguished combat record flying navy Panther jets off the USS Essex during the Korean War. Hansen effectively brings the reader into the dangerous world of close-air support and carrier landings that Armstrong mastered as a young ensign.

Most of the book is devoted to Armstrong's eight years as an astronaut, in particular to a detailed treatment of the Apollo 11 mission. Reviewers in the popular press have already noted the persuasiveness of Hansen's deconstruction of the origins of the first words from the lunar surface and his dissection of the decision that Armstrong, rather than Buzz Aldrin, would go out the door first. From my standpoint, however, Hansen's careful analysis of the piloting aspects of Armstrong's two missions, Gemini VIII and Apollo 11, are of equal importance, notably the near-fatal stuck-thruster accident in the first and the complexity of the lunar landing challenge in the second.

First Man's sole significant flaw is its length. At times it is too detailed, notably in its account of Armstrong's navy flight training, where Hansen feels compelled to list every grade in every evaluation, simply because he had the documents. Another example is his extensive quotation from Walter Cronkite's CBS coverage of Apollo 11, which is atmospheric, but often dispensable. Since luck, as well as very high competence, led Neil Armstrong to become the first man to walk on the moon—it could have been any one of about a half-dozen mission commanders of early Apollo flights—some readers may question whether 654 pages of text are needed for someone who shaped history less than he was shaped...