He was expected to never make it back from his historic moonwalk. He did make it back and went on to live to a ripe old age. The man is a hero to the human race for his contributions. Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on moon, dead at 82 - YouTube
Their trek was entirely unprecedented. NASA had no way of testing their on-paper equations except by moving forward and sending human beings into the unknown. Apollo 11 Moon Landing Letter • VideoSift: Online Video *Quality Control
RIP Sir, thanks for pushing the limits. Is this an OK white male for me to like? Or are we digging back into his past to see who he offended in order to tarnish his reputation? You know, from all that white male privilege and all.
Actually they did; by the time of the first Apollo manned flight many launches of space vehicles had occurred including the pre-Apollo Mecury and Gemini programs, the lunar landings of Surveyor, and unmanned Saturn/Apollo flights, and Every component and system was extensively tested. Redundancy and safety precautions were included such that the flights survived being hit by lightning (Apollo 12) and losing 1-1/2 parachutes (Apollo 15). Some risk had to be taken because their is no practical way to protect against a hit by a large high velocity meteoroid (although spacecraft are rarely hit by these). All the manned spacecraft before the Space Shuttle had an emergency escape system but were never needed (that the Space Shuttle lacked this capability was bemoaned by many engineers in NASA and the aerospace industry - such a system might have saved the Challenger and Columbia crews).
Yes, Ian's right. My dad was an Apollo engineer, I met several astronauts and even met Werner Von Braun. What they didn't know was if humans would bring back some "space disease" or if there would be some catastrophic event while walking on the moon that would prohibit some or all of the astronauts from returning to Earth. So yes, there was a risk, but not because the rockets, pod or equipment wasn't tested.
