<Tr> <Th> Mission insignia </Th> <Td> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Awards </Th> <Td> </Td> </Tr> <P> Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930--August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut, engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon . He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor . Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War . After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High - Speed Flight Station, where he logged over 900 flights . He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California . </P> <P> A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna - Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962 . He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space . He performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott . This mission was aborted after Armstrong used some of his reentry control fuel to prevent a dangerous spin caused by a stuck thruster, in the first in - flight space emergency . </P>

Who is the first person to go to the moon