Dear Neil Armstrong

In the years between the historic first moonlanding by Apollo 11 on July 20,1969, and his death at age 82 on August 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong receivedhundreds of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world,congratulating him, praising him, requesting pictures and autographs, andasking him what must have seemed to him to be limitless—and occasionallyintrusive—questions. Of course, all the famous astronauts received fan mail,but the sheer volume Armstrong had to deal with for more than four decadesafter his moon landing was staggering.

Today, the preponderance of those letters—some 75,000 of them—are preserved in the archives atPurdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man on the Moon publishesa careful sampling of these letters—roughly 400—reflecting the various kinds ofcorrespondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of hisreplies. Selected and edited by James R. Hansen, Armstrong’s authorizedbiographer and author of the New YorkTimes best seller First Man: The Lifeof Neil A. Armstrong, this collection sheds light on Armstrong’s enduring impact and offers an intimate glimpse intothe cultural meanings of human spaceflight. Readers will explore what thethousands of letters to Neil Armstrong meant not only to those who wrote them, butas a snapshot of one of humankind’s greatest achievements in the twentiethcentury. They will see how societies and cultures projected their own meaningsonto one of the world’s great heroes and iconic figures.