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Arts & Entertainment

Lights Dimmed for Neil Armstrong in Hollywood

The lights being dimmed is a rare honor, but Armstrong's contribution to media was recognized by Hollywood.

The Saturday announcement of the death of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, resonated in Southern California.

Commander of the July 1969 Apollo 11 space mission in which Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon, the reclusive Armstrong died at age 82 from complications of heart bypass surgery, his family said.

"He was Mr. Space, the one who really opened that frontier," Charles Elachi, director of the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory told the Los Angeles Times today. "I would imagine he would have been excited that we were going beyond the moon and possibly opening a future for human missions to Mars."

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Elachi said watching the lunar landing while he was a student at Caltech in the late 1960s helped inspire him to seek a career in science and math, the Times reported.

"In those days, just going into orbit was a major feat," Elachi was quoted as saying. "And to be the first person to land on the moon, as he and Buzz Aldrin did -- you had to respect that kind of boldness and courage."

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The Hollywood Historic Trust placed flowers this afternoon at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, where markers honoring the three Apollo 11 astronauts' accomplishment are set in concrete on all four corners of the world- famous intersection.

"When Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, hundreds of millions of TV viewers watched," Hollywood Historic Trust spokeswoman Ana Martinez said. "During that era, this event was the single most important live TV broadcast ever."

At 9 p.m. Saturday, the forecourt lights at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard was dimmed for a minute in a tribute to Armstrong.

"This honor is usually reserved for major Hollywood figures, but Neil Armstrong is unique as an American and a superhero," the theatre's Alwyn Hight- Kushner said. "And so it is with deep respect on behalf of the Hollywood community that we bestow this accolade on the first man to walk on the moon."

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