![Image](http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2012/08/26/1226458/176983-john-glenn-50th-anniversary.jpg)
NEIL Armstrong, who led the Apollo 11 spacecraft and became the first man to set foot on the Moon, has died from complications after heart surgery.
Armstrong was a quiet self-described nerdy engineer who became a global hero when as a steely-nerved pilot he made "one giant leap for mankind" with a small step on to the moon.
The modest man who had people on Earth entranced and awed from almost a quarter million miles away was 82 when he died.
In those first few moments on the moon, during the climax of heated space race with the then-Soviet Union, Armstrong stopped in what he called "a tender moment" and left a patch commemorate NASA astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts who had died in action.
![Image](http://cdn4.iconfinder.com/data/icons/fatcow/32x32_0600/newspaper_go.png)
This kind of hit me as a bit of a shocker this morning.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif)
RIP.