Nov30
Sorry, but I think that this would be disrespectful to both Hugh Dryden and Neil Armstrong. Leave the name as it is, and come up with something else to name after Neil, that would be worthy of him. Like the first lunar base. Assuming NASA ever builds one. Which seems doubtful.
They should name the freaking moon after him. Or at least the first moon city.
How about naming that place in the California High Desert the “Florence Lowe Flight Research Center.”
OK, that reference is too obscure, the Pancho Barnes Flight Research Center?
OK, OK, no one here has read Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff”?
They already bumped off Geo Lewis. I’d rather they went after LBJ, though. It seems more appropriate for Armstrong’s signature achievement.
NASA (and DoD) know where they get the butter for their bread. That’s why there is a carrier named “Stennis.”
It really doesn’t matter. Neil Armstrong will be remembered when the Pyramids are dust; assuming, of course, there is a human (or human-derived) civilisation then.
I’m not sure Solomon, Moses, Guatama Buddha, Genghis Khan or Rameses (to name but a few) have anything named after them either; the achievement of Armstrong is at least as important as any of those. Yes, I know it wasn’t exclusively his achievement – but them’s the breaks.
I’ve got another proposal. It’s not original with me. Officially name July 20th as Tranquility Day.
If they don’t have one, they had at one point. Solomon’s Temple (destroyed), Buddha statues everywhere around Asia, Kharakhorum (destroyed), Pi-Ramesses (destroyed).
BTW the tomb of Genghis Khan was never discovered. It is alleged they diverted a river over it so it would never be found and the people who knew about the location were slaughtered by special troops.
“I’m not sure Solomon, Moses, Guatama Buddha, Genghis Khan or Rameses (to name but a few) have anything named after them either”
Yeah, things named things after politicians.
It’s a version having all those giant pictures of beloved leaders in dictatorial states.
Moses a dictatorial leader? I always had the impression that his leading the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and to the Promised Land was, like herding cats. The Israelites were really into grumbling about the hardships and it seems that they were willing to ignore Moses many times.
Until 1976, the place was known by the Air Force as Muroc Flight Test Unit. For NASA, it was simply the Flight Research Center. The name “Muroc” isn’t even a real name. The Corum family, who originally settled that part of the country, already had a town named after them. So when they went to name their settlement near Rogers (dry) Lake, they just used their name spelled backward.
In 1976, the Flight Test Center was named after the late Hugh Dryden, an aeronautical engineer of some distinction, and James Webb’s deputy Administrator. He is sometimes credited with giving JFK the idea to land a man on the moon.
Armstrong may have been the first man to step on the surface of the moon, but he was primarily an aircraft test pilot. When asked to make one of his last public appearances (at a suborbital research conference), he is said to have agreed only on the condition that he talk about his flights in the X-15, and not about Apollo 11. So Armstrong himself was more partial to what he did at the Flight Research Center than his moon landing.
In light of all that, it’s a tough call as to whether to rename the place. I rather think that Armstrong would have liked it, though obviously we will never know…