Purdue University digitizes hundreds of Neil Armstrong's notes and speeches

WEST LAFAYETTE — Neil Armstrong's interstellar legacy remains an inspiration to Purdue University engineering students more than 50 years after he was the first man on the moon. The university hopes his writings will inspire people far beyond West Lafayette.

Purdue University Archives and Special Collections recently completed the digitization of nearly 500 notes and speeches left behind after Armstrong's death in 2012. The collection, which can be read in full for free at this link, contains more than 7,000 pages and took about two years to archive.

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"It's the more you get to know Neil as a person instead of just someone who is a household name," said Jo Otremba, who archives Purdue University's flight and space exploration collection. "He's someone that has his own thoughts and his own perspective."

The collection was donated to Purdue by Armstrong's widow Carol, who partially funded the archival process.

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Armstrong remains a storied figure on Purdue's campus. The university's hall of engineering is named in his honor and features a statue of a young Armstrong by its main entrance.

Purdue aerospace students such as Ihaf Adi said Armstrong is part of the reason they pursued their passion.

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"I just walk by the statue and I'm reminded if Neil Armstrong can walk on the moon, I never know what I'm going to be," Adi said. "It's the fact that he took all the classes I took and he was here on campus to experience what I experienced, then he went and made history."

Otremba hopes people of all ages take time to read Armstrong's writings.

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"It's truly a way of giving credit back to Neil himself," Otremba said. "This is what he wanted. He wanted his papers to be accessible by the public and by the students."

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Armstrong graduated from Purdue with a degree in aeronautics engineering in 1955. He received an honorary doctorate from Purdue in 1970, the year after he returned from the Apollo 11 mission.