Hello, and welcome to this special edition of SciShow News. Neil Armstrong died this morning of complications after a medical procedure.

He was not the only man to walk on another world - 12 other men have done that - but this isn't about whose footprints are where, this is about what a world accomplished.

Neil Armstrong started his career as a Navy pilot, but unlike many of his pilot colleagues, he then went on to get an engineering degree. This knowledge would be extremely useful as Armstrong started his career as a test pilot for a top-secret aircraft. Through this training, his love of science and math and exploration, his path took him to NASA, and eventually to the Moon.

Armstrong, over a cast of thousands of potential candidates, was selected to be the first man on the Moon, because people knew that he would become a symbol. And then wanted a man who had been many things, and yet remained even-tempered, levelheaded, and with a substantially smaller ego than many of his colleagues. Armstrong, they knew, would understand that this wasn't something he had done, but instead, something we had done.

After returning to Earth, Armstrong took a position teaching engineering. He declined all offers of public office, and kept his political views private, and refused to profit unduly from his position.

He became his mission - he captured that spirit, he took it to heart. He was the world's accomplishment, a face and a name to put to one of the most marvelous things humanity has ever accomplished.

Neil Armstrong was an engineer, a pilot, a soldier, a leader, a captain, a nerd... but most of all, he was all of us. He was a symbol of what we could do when we work together toward a common goal. He was a symbol of the power of America, of science, of engineering, and of the unity of mankind.

We will never lose that symbol, but we are all sad to have lost the man.