RV Neil Armstrong (AGOR-27) RV Neil Armstrong (AGOR-27) RV "Neil Armstrong" (AGOR-27) is the designation for a new oceanographic research ship, first of the s, to be owned by the United States Navy and operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced on September 24, 2012 that the research vessel was to be named after Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon and a former naval aviator who served in the Korean War. The ship was ordered in May 2010 as a replacement for , operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since 1970. The ship was
Neil Armstrong crew were feted across the United States and around the world as part of a 45-day "Giant Leap" tour. Armstrong then took part in Bob Hope's 1969 USO show, primarily to Vietnam. In May 1970, Armstrong traveled to the Soviet Union to present a talk at the 13th annual conference of the International Committee on Space Research; after arriving in Leningrad from Poland, he traveled to Moscow where he met Premier Alexei Kosygin. Armstrong was the first westerner to see the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 and was given a tour of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, which he described as