SAG-AFTRA Mourns Passing of Astronaut Neil Armstrong

SAG-AFTRA mourns the passing of astronaut Neil Armstrong, one of our greatest American heroes who contributed significantly to this country’s spirit of adventure and scientific curiosity. Armstrong died Saturday at age 82.

The astronaut flew into space twice, first in 1966 as commander of the Gemini 8 mission, which nearly ended in disaster when a thruster rocket malfunctioned. The commander kept his cool and brought Gemini 8 home safely.

And in July 1969, Armstrong, along with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, made a 250,000-mile journey to the moon that went down in the history books. At age 38, Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon, uttering the now-famous phrase: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstong resigned from NASA in 1971 and taught engineering at the University of Cincinnati for the next decade.

While he largely avoided the public spotlight, in 2010 he provided a cameo voiceover for the animated film Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey. Armstrong was in good company alongside actors known for their own onscreen adventures in space, such as William Shatner, Chris Pine, Mark Hamill and James Earl Jones.