He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honour, in 2012.
The ship with more than 4,000 crew members has been a part of history over the past 50 years. It was involved in several wars and played a prominent role in the Cuban missile crisis. It also served as a spotter ship for John Glenn's historic orbit of Earth.
It has been a half-century since Neil Armstrong stepped out of a lunar module and onto the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969 and declared, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." The moment heralded a golden age of space exploration that was set in motion just eight years earlier in 1961, when United States President John F Kennedy promised before Congress to put a man on the moon before the decade was out. Here are some lesser-known facts about the historic first mission:
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