Project Mercury also excluded civilian NASA X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong, though he had been selected by the US Air Force in 1958 for its Man In Space Soonest program, which was replaced by Mercury. Although Armstrong had been a combat-experienced NAP during the Korean War, he left active duty in 1952. Armstrong became NASA's first civilian astronaut in 1962 when he was selected for NASA's second group, and became the first man on the Moon in 1969. It was further stipulated that candidates should be between 25 and 40 years old, no taller than , and hold a college degree in a
Neil Armstrong Armstrong's hometown of Wapakoneta, and the airport in New Knoxville, Ohio where he took his first flying lessons at 15, are named after him. Purdue University announced in October 2004 that its new engineering building would be named Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering; the building was dedicated on October 27, 2007 during a ceremony at which Armstrong was joined by fourteen other Purdue astronauts. The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center was renamed the NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center in 2014. In September 2012, the U.S. Navy announced that the first "Armstrong"-class vessel would be named . Delivered to