Tales like that make him sound like the Celestial Cincinnatus: the hero who returned to his plow. But that’s what he was. He took a desk job at NASA, then taught engineering to college students. From a distance, it seems as if he understood perfectly that nothing in his life would equal that achievement. Nothing could. No one expected anything more. He could have debased his fame with a publicity tour or endorsements for Blast-Off Cola (That’s one big sip for a man, one giant gulp for thirstkind!), guest-starred on the $100,000 Pyramid, made a nice chunk and lived a life of conspicuous leisure – but he just stepped out of the spotlight at the earliest decent opportunity…
The effort to put a man on the moon was everything the counterculture 60s repudiated: technology, military skill, national pride, American optimism, the sense that the Frontier has to be conquered so we can find a new one, and go there too. Neil Armstrong offered in jest to be the first man to walk on Mars, as well. Buzz Aldrin has been pushing a Mars jaunt for years. If the space program had kept up its pace and sent a team to Mars in the 90s, of course they wouldn’t have sent Neil and Buzz, but if they had, you can imagine Neil Armstrong holding the door for his co-pilot. I’ve had mine. You first.
He seemed like that sort of man.
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