Neil Armstrong interview last night

Hi all.

I went along to the Neil Armstrong interview at the NCH last night - and I have to say it was a wonderfully entertaining evening, despite ol'Gaybo! Armstrong is quite a good speaker, a little nervous at first, but he settled down quite well. Topics covered included his learning to fly, his service in Korea, his stint at Edwards and of course his NASA days - loads of little stories to enthrall and a very sharp wit as well! He came across as an extremely nice, down to earth individual - once you got past the initial shyness.

As regards questions from the floor, oh well - first out of the blocks was the 'Mr Gorsky' urban legend........ another came from a whacko in the cheap seats who started off on an 'it was all a hoax' rant....... you can see where most of these were going. He did also explain why he doesn't do autographs anymore - he finds the whole autograph business a very tawdry one, given the amounts of money asked for the exchange of certain astronauts autographs. It all wrapped up about 10:30, with plenty of people still wanting to ask questions - by this stage, I'd managed to get my hands on a microphone and was waiting for Gaybo to point in our direction when he decided to wrap it up! At least I wasn't waiting for 20 mins patiently like some guy downstairs, onlt to be completely ignored by Gaybo, even though the usher had been flagging for his attention for ages. Still all in all a rather enjoyable evening - if only it was anyone else Gaybo though!

Clear skies.

Brian

Sounds like a good evening was had. Are they showing it on TV are some stage??

It's part of a series called 'Face to Face', which I think RTE will broadcast, not sure when though.

It'll be on radio apparently. Like Brian it was agreat night. The questions were interesting up until Gaybo started asking about whether or not Armstrong believed in God!

It was great to see so many kids there last night. Astronomy should have a bright future if so many kids are interested in seeing the first man on the moon.

Audience questions were so annoying. He was asked twice how a person goes about becoming an astronaut. Look it up people! I still can't believe that some guy travelled from the north and paid for a ticket just so he could ask why Mike Collins looked nervous when he came out of the isolation chamber! If that is all his theory is based on ...

why Mike Collins looked nervous when he came out of the isolation chamber! If that is all his theory is based on ...

Perhaps he thought Nixon was still outside?

Speaking of Apollo11, I got `The Dish` out on DVD recently, good funny film!

Cheers,
~Al

Just as a matter of interest, how were the "was it all faked" type questions dealth with? Were they simply ignored (fuely in the conspiracey theorists) or were they properly and scienticaly dealt with?

Bart.