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The famous NASA Dryden Center at Edwards AFB in California is to be re-named in honour of Neil Armstrong, the naval test pilot who was the first human to walk on the moon.
US President Barack Obama has signed the congressional resolution required to redesignate NASA’s Hugh L Dryden Flight Research Center as the Neil A Armstrong Flight Research Center.
Neil Armstrong was born in 1930 and earned an aeronautical engineering degree from Purdue University and a master’s in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California. He was a naval aviator from 1949 to 1952, and flew 78 combat missions during the Korean War.
In 1955 he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) – NASA’s predecessor – as a research pilot. Armstrong later transferred to NACA’s High Speed Flight Research Station at Edwards AFB, which was subsequently named NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. As a research project test pilot he was one of a handful of pilots to fly the Mach 5 Rockwell X-15 before being selected as the first of 12 men to later walk on the moon. In total, he flew more than 200 different types of aircraft.
Neil Armstrong passed away in August 2012.
