CINCINNATI (United States): Neil Armstrong made “one giant leap for mankind” with a small step onto the moon.    

He commanded the historic landing of the Apollo 11 spacecraft on the moon July 20, 1969, capping the most daring of the 20th century’s scientific expeditions and becoming the first man to walk on the moon.

His first words after the feat are etched in history books and the memories of the spellbound millions who heard them in a live broadcast.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong said. He insisted later that he had said “a” before man, but said he, too, couldn’t hear it in the version that went to the world.

Armstrong, who had bypass surgery earlier this month, died on Saturday at age 82 from what his family said were complications of heart procedures.

Armstrong’s moonwalk capped a series of accomplishments that included piloting the X-15 rocket plane and making the first space docking during the Gemini 8 mission, which included a successful emergency splashdown.

In the years afterward, Armstrong retreated to the quiet of the classroom and his southwestern Ohio farm. In an Australian interview earlier this year, Armstrong acknowledged that “now and then I miss the excitement about being in the cockpit of an airplane and doing new things”.

Glenn, who went through jungle training in Panama with Armstrong as part of the astronaut programme, described him as “exceptionally brilliant” with technical matters but “rather retiring, doesn't like to be thrust into the limelight much.''

The 1969 landing met an audacious deadline that President Kennedy had set in May 1961, shortly after Alan Shepard became the first American in space with a 15-minute suborbital flight. (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin had orbited the Earth and beaten the US into space the previous month.)

“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth,” Kennedy had said. “No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important to the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.''

The end-of-decade goal was met with more than five months to spare. “Houston: Tranquility Base here,” Armstrong radioed after the spacecraft settled onto the moon. “The Eagle has landed.''

“Roger, Tranquility,” Apollo astronaut Charles Duke radioed back from Mission Control. “We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.''

The third astronaut on the mission, Michael Collins, circled the moon in the mother ship Columbia 60 miles overhead while Armstrong and Aldrin went to the moon's surface.

“He was the best, and I will miss him terribly,” Collins said through NASA.

In all, 12 American astronauts walked on the moon before the last moon mission in 1972.

Armstrong was born Aug. 5, 1930, on a farm near Wapakoneta in western Ohio. He took his first airplane ride at age 6 and developed a fascination with aviation that prompted him to build model airplanes and conduct experiments in a homemade wind tunnel.

As a boy, he worked at a pharmacy and took flying lessons. He was licensed to fly at 16, before he got his driver's license.

Armstrong enrolled in Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering but was called to duty with the US Navy in 1949 and flew 78 combat missions in Korea.

After the war, Armstrong finished his degree from Purdue and later earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California. He became a test pilot with what evolved into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, flying more than 200 kinds of aircraft from gliders to jets.

Armstrong was accepted into NASA's second astronaut class in 1962 — the first, including Glenn, was chosen in 1959. He commanded the Gemini 8 mission in 1966, bringing back the capsule back in an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean when a wildly firing thruster kicked it out of orbit.

Aldrin said he and Armstrong were not prone to free exchanges of sentiment.

''But there was that moment on the moon, a brief moment, in which we sort of looked at each other and slapped each other on the shoulder ... and said, 'We made it. Good show,’ or something like that,” Aldrin said.An estimated 600 million people — a fifth of the world's population — watched and listened to the landing, the largest audience for any single event in history.Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were given ticker tape parades in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and later made a 22-nation world tour.

A homecoming in Wapakoneta drew 50,000 people to the city of 9,000.

In 1970, Armstrong was appointed deputy associate administrator for aeronautics at NASA but left the following year to teach aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.He remained there until 1979 and during that time bought a 310-acre farm near Lebanon, where he raised cattle and corn. He stayed out of public view, accepting few requests for interviews or speeches.

In 2000, when he agreed to announce the top 20 engineering achievements of the 20th Century as voted by the National Academy of Engineering, Armstrong mentioned one disappointment relating to his moonwalk.

''I can honestly say — and it's a big surprise to me — that I have never had a dream about being on the moon,” he said.

From 1982 to 1992, Armstrong was chairman of Charlottesville, Virginia-based Computing Technologies for Aviation Inc., a company that supplies computer information management systems for business aircraft.

He then became chairman of AIL Systems Inc., an electronic systems company in Deer Park, New York.

Just prior to the 50th anniversary of Glenn's orbital flight this past February, Armstrong offered high praise to the elder astronaut. Noted Armstrong in an email: “I am hoping I will be 'in his shoes' and have as much success in longevity as he has demonstrated.” Glenn is 91.

For anyone else who wanted to remember him, his family's statement made a simple request:“Honour his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”—AP