One small step for a man, and one giant leap for mankind.

If Neil Armstrong had died a week earlier, I wouldn't have bothered wasting more than a minute to talk about him. But now I decided that I want to blog again, and everyone in my Facebook feed is trying to be classy by updating their status to "RIP Neil Armstrong, we will miss you," let's talk a bit about him.

I'm not personally familiar with him. I had heard about him every now and then. I had read about him every now and then (I have no idea how, but he manages to flawlessly appear in every single reading in English classes that I had to take). So really, the only thing I knew about him before I wrote this post was just that he walked on the Moon.

Since I was already determined to write about him, I read a little bit more about him. And here is one of the most interesting things I came to. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong:

Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2½ hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in orbit in the Command Module.

Right, based on Wiki, there were two other people who came with Armstrong. Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Buzz Aldrin was recorded as the second man to walk on the Moon, and Michael Collins stayed in the rocket dock.

The first thing I thought when I read this was 'how must it feel to be Collins?' Sure compared to you and me, he is probably a lot more famous (heck, he even has a page of Wikipedia dedicated to himself), but it goes without saying that he is far less famous than the deceased Neil Armstrong. We all know that Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on Moon, but do you know that Michael Collins decided to stay behind because someone needed to maintain the Command Modules? (Well, for all we know, they could have done a rock-paper-scissors and Michael Collins simply lost). 

I am perfectly aware that the one who died yesterday was Neil Armstrong, and I'm writing this to commemorate him, but let's not forget that behind every one small step for a man, or behind every one giant leap for mankind; there is that one guy who sat in silence just so that small step could take place.

Anyway, I guess Rest in Peace Neil Armstrong, and I hope you managed to land on Heaven successfully.