Neil Armstrong Grants a Rare and Unique Interview

Neil Armstrong is considered a great symbol of human achievement since he was the first man to walk on the moon.

Despite that unique and prestigious honour, Neil Armstrong kept a private life and rarely gave interviews.

Recently, he granted a rare and unique interview to a very unusual group: the Certified Practicing Accountants (CPA) of Australia.

Alex Malley, the chief executive officer of CPA Australia, was the one who conducted the interview and Mr Armstrong disclosed some very interesting information ranging from the time that he was flying fighter planes during the Korean War to the very popular topic of the first landing on the moon.

Prior to that interview, Neil Armstrong's wife, Carol, had disclosed that he used to receive at least 10 interview requests per month but he did not give permission to these requests because he felt that he had already said everything in previous interviews.

In his latest four-part interview, Mr Armstrong recalled some interesting stories about the first expedition to the moon.

He shared his thoughts about the trip, stating that "I should say I thought we had a 90 per cent chance of getting back to Earth on that flight, but only a 50-50 chance of making a successful landing on the first attempt."

He also added that the original landing site was a "very bad location" and he needed to manually control it to have a safe landing.

His exact words were: "It was on the side of a large crater, about 100 or 150 metres in diameter, with very steep slopes covered with very large boulders - not a good place to land at all. It was a very bad location.

So, I took over manually and flew it like a helicopter out to the west, got into a smoother area with not so many rocks, found a level area and was able to get it down there safely before we ran out of fuel."

Mr Armstrong also disclosed his thoughts about the future of NASA as it is likened to a "shuttlecock" between Congress and the Obama administration.

He remarked that "NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve.

It's sad that we are turning the program in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people. And that's a major concern to me."