Space Grandmas
Many of the early astronauts were rambunctious, fighter pilot type of people. Neil Armstrong was the first civilian accepted into the astronaut program and was kind of looked at as a goody two shoes by other astronauts. With Apollo 11 heading for the moon, TV crews swarmed the Armstrong house and interviewed his 82 year old grandma. She said “I think it’s dangerous. I told Neil to look around and not step out if it didn’t look good. He said he wouldn’t”

Customs
Before the ticker tape parades and the inevitable world tour, the triumphant Apollo 11 astronauts were greeted with a more mundane aspect of life on Earth when they splashed down, going through customs.

Just what did Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins have to declare? Moon rocks, moon dust and other lunar samples, according to the customs form filed at the Honolulu Airport in Hawaii on July 24, 1969 – the day the Apollo 11 crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to end their historic moon landing mission. The customs form is signed by all three Apollo 11 astronauts. They declared their cargo and listed their flight route as starting Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral) in Florida with a stopover on the moon.

Since Hawaii had already become a state by the time of the moon landing, the customs form was done as a joke to welcome back the crew. The crew then spent 21 days in a mobile quarantine facility while NASA determined they hadn’t brought back anything harmful from space.



Little Neil Armstrong

Being an American Badass that first stepped on the moon doesn’t mean you weren’t adorable as a kid, or still treated like an average Joe afterwards. Thought to be the oldest known item ever signed by Neil is a letter he wrote to the Easter bunny asking the Easter bunny to hide his basket.

It reads
“Dear Easter Bunny
Please Hide our baskets
And try to make us finet (find spelled wrong) them
Neil”

Average Joe

Imagine, you just flew to the moon and back. You were welcomed home by the president of the united states and a ticker tape parade was thrown in your honor. A few years later, you decide you want a credit card and you are denied. How could someone like Neil be denied a Diner’s Club card? He didn’t make enough money. The astronauts were paid government salaries and didn’t get bonuses for doing stuff like traveling 400,000 to and from the moon. Neil’s 1969 salary was about $20,000 and that was below the salary requirements for the Diner’s Club card at the time. Sorry, Neil. At least they returned his $15 check for the application fee.