The man who did the Coolest Thing Ever has died at 82 from complications of a heart-bypass surgery a few weeks ago.
It took a legion of nearly half a million people on the ground and an enormous rocket to put three men into orbit around the moon, a quarter million miles away.
It takes a badass to sit on top of one of those Saturn rockets, feeling it swaying in the winds on the Cape, then riding a column of flame into orbit, coasting in silence to our closest neighbor. I'd settle for being the guy who stays in the Command Module, looping around the moon, but how awesome to be The First to walk on it. Mr. Armstrong's boot prints are still up there, an eternal "I was here."
The Onion's "Moon Landing" describes the utter badassitude of Mr. Armstrong and the 11 guys who followed him (not safe for work, but this is how people should STILL be reacting to walking on the moon).
Of those twelve, only eight are left:
02. Buzz Aldrin
04. Alan Bean
06. Edgar Mitchell
07. David Scott
09. John W. Young
10. Charles Duke
11. Eugene Cernan
12. Harrison Schmitt
01. Neil Armstrong
03. Pete Conrad
05. Alan Shepard
08. James Irwin
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