This 1960 image provided by NASA shows Neil Armstrong standing by an X-15 rocketplane after a test flight. Armstrong later went on to become the first man to walk on the moon. A bill in Congress wants to rename the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California after the Apollo 11 astronaut to honor his time there as a test pilot. (AP Photo/NASA)
Neil Armstrong's name is attached to a lunar crater, an asteroid, more than a dozen schools and a museum.
But there's no NASA center named for the man whose "giant leap" made him the first to walk on the moon.
All that could soon change. Leaders at the space agency's Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California are mulling the consequences of a proposed name change at the place where Armstrong was a test pilot.
This undated image provided by NASA shows President Dwight Eisenhower, center, commissioning Dr. T. Keith Glennan, right, as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden as deputy administrator, in Washington, D.C. A bill in Congress wants to rename the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California after Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 astronaut to honor his time there as a test pilot. (AP Photo/NASA)
The push by some in Congress has brought with it some questions: Is it justified to substitute one accomplished figure for another? At a time of squeezed budgets, is it worth the cost?
It wouldn't be the first rebranding of a NASA facility. The Lewis Research Center in Ohio was renamed for astronaut John Glenn.
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'One giant leap' toward a NASA Armstrong center? (2013, June 8)
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