It was on July 20, 1969, that Neil Armstrong the United States astronaut landed on the lunar surface, thus marking the first human footstep on the earth's natural satellite. After achieving the milestone feat, the aeronautical engineer delivered the iconic quote, "One small step for me, One giant leap for mankind".
However, after completing the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, Neil Armstrong intentionally stood away from the limelight and this attitude of the astronaut even compelled many to think that NASA has faked the entire lunar mission in an attempt to defeat the Soviet Union in the space race.
But popular American physicist Neil deGrasse recently dismissed all these conspiracy theories, and he revealed the exact reason why the astronaut remained silent. Tyson made these remarks during an episode of his Star Talk podcast.
As per Tyson, Neil Armstrong was a very humble man who did not seek publicity throughout his career and this was one crucial factor behind the silence of the US astronaut.
"Neil Armstrong was not gregarious, he was a very quiet man and did not seek publicity. He was not the life of the party, but sometimes the people who are not the life of the party are sitting doing nothing. He's sitting there, in his head, figuring stuff out, it's the active mind of a restless brain of the engineer. This is what was captured," said Tyson during the podcast, Express.co.uk reported.
Mike Massimino, a fellow NASA astronaut also shared his experience talking with Neil Armstrong. As per Massimino, Neil Armstrong remained very silent during the first meeting, and he never talked about the moon, instead, he talked a lot about the importance of test flying.
As NASA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic moon landing, the Trump administration had recently asked the space agency to take humans to the moon again to build a permanent base on the lunar surface. Space experts at NASA believe that building a permanent base on the moon will help humans to accomplish the ultimate aim of Mars colonization.
