It was standing room only inside the Teague Auditorium. About 700 NASA employees, friends and family were on hand to honor Armstrong and his actions.
He is remembered as the human face of the space program; the first man to walk on the moon. He is lauded as quiet, cool under pressure and intelligent beyond his years. They say he had high expectations for not only others, but himself.
They are qualities Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa says they strive still for at NASA every day.
Fellow Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins remembers him fondly.
"Neil was just smart as hell, not just about flying. His head was a reservoir of facts, some very useful at times," he said. "People who don't seek the limelight but can live competently in its glare, who are the very antithesis of some of today's empty-headed celebrities that we seem to admire."
Buzz Aldrin took the opportunity today to publicly call for President Obama to clarify his stance on the future of human space flight. He says Armstrong likely would have agreed to some degree about the future.
Aldrin calls for Obama to not only focus on investigation of Asteroid, but to look at such a mission as a test flight for an interplanetary spaceship. Aldrin calls for the permanent settlement of Mars, led by NASA astronauts, by the 2030s..
We'll have more on that and much more on how Armstrong is rememberedas a hero tongiht on Eyewitness News at 4pm.
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