Prologue: The Launch

Part One: An American Genesis

Chapter 1 The Strong of Arm

Chapter 2 The Strong of Spirit

Part Two: Tranquility Base

Chapter 3 First Child

Chapter 4 The Virtues of Smallville6

Chapter 5 Truth in the Air

Chapter 6 Aeronautical Engineering 101

Part Three: Wings of Gold

Chapter 7 Class 5-49

Chapter 8 Fighter Squadron 51

Chapter 9 Fate Is the Hunter

Chapter 10 The Ordeal of Eagles

Part Four: The Real Right Stuff

Chapter 11 The Research Pilot

Chapter 12 Above the High Desert

Chapter 13 At the Edge of Space

Chapter 14 The Worst Loss

Chapter 15 Higher Resolve

Chapter 16 I've Got a Secret

Part Five: No Man Is an Island

Chapter 17 Training Days

Chapter 18 In Line for Command

Chapter 19 Gemini VIII

Chapter 20 The Astronaut's Wife

Chapter 21 For All America

Part Six: Apollo

Chapter 22 Out of the Ashes

Chapter 23 Wingless on Luna

Chapter 24 Amiable Strangers

Chapter 25 First Out

Chapter 26 Dialectics of a Moon Mission

Part Seven: One Giant Leap

Chapter 27 Outward Bound

Chapter 28 The Landing

Chapter 29 One Small Step

Chapter 30 Return to Earth

Chapter 31 For All Mankind

Part Eight: Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter 32 Standing Ground

Chapter 33 To Engineer Is Human

Chapter 34 The Astronaut as Icon

Chapter 35 Into the Heartland

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch thirty-eight-year-old American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person ever to step on the surface of another heavenly body. Perhaps no words in human history became better known than those few he uttered at that historic moment.

Upon his return to Earth, Armstrong was honored and celebrated for his monumental achievement. He was also -- as James R. Hansen reveals in this fascinating and important authorized biography -- misunderstood. Armstrong's accomplishments as an engineer, a test pilot, and an astronaut have long been a matter of record, but Hansen's unprecedented access to private documents and unpublished sources and his interviews with more than 125 subjects (including more than fifty hours with Armstrong himself) yield this first in-depth analysis of an elusive American celebrity still renowned the world over.

In a riveting narrative filled with revelations, Hansen vividly re-creates Armstrong's career in flying, from his seventy-eight combat missions as a naval aviator flying over North Korea to his formative transatmospheric flights in the rocket-powered X-15 to his piloting Gemini VIII to the first-ever docking in space. These milestones made it seem, as Armstrong's mother, Viola, memorably put it, "as if from the very moment he was born -- farther back still -- that our son was somehow destined for the Apollo 11 mission."

For a pilot who cared more about flying to the Moon than he did about walking on it, Hansen asserts, Armstrong's storied vocation exacted a dear personal toll, paid in kind by his wife and children. For the thirty-six years since the Moon landing, rumors have swirled around Armstrong concerning his dreams of space travel, his religious beliefs, and his private life.

In a penetrating exploration of American hero worship, Hansen addresses the complex legacy of the First Man, as an astronaut and as an individual. In First Man, the personal, technological, epic, and iconic blend to form the portrait of a great but reluctant hero who will forever be known as history's most famous space traveler.