-Neil Armstrong ,Apollo 11 astronaut - the first person to walk on the Moon.
July 20, 2019, was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing when American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person ever to plant boots on the dusty lunar surface.
Buzz Aldrin followed Armstrong about 20 minutes later on the moon wrote in his 2014 AMA….
"In all previous missions, if someone, a crew member, was to spacewalk, it was always the junior person, not the space commander who would stay inside" .
At least one team at NASA thought the junior person should go out first, Aldrin wrote, "but many people felt the great symbology of the commander [taking that responsibility]."
So Armstrong climbed down the ladder onto the moon's surface, shortly followed by his now-famous "one small step" line.
"The decision that was made was absolutely correct as far as who went out first, symbolically" .-Aldrin'
The decision was taken by Deke Slayton (NASA's first Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations, and was responsible for NASA crew assignments) on a pure protocol basis and Bob Gilruth( first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center) approved the same. Neither Armstrong pull his rank ,nor his opinion was asked and It was also fine with Aldrin if it was to be Neil.
No one can argue that technologically stepping on the moon by a man is a gaint leap for mankind. From a managerial perspective it shows how successful orgnisations work and function. What is to be observed is the simple way to decide and procedure of implementations of the decisions. Such small step of decision making and implementation in an organization make them a giant one like NASA.
-Credits:
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-7.html
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-350/ch-8-7.html
https://www.businessinsider.in/The-Surprising-Reason-Neil-Armstrong-And-Not-Buzz-Aldrin-Was-The-First-Person-On-The-Moon/articleshow/38628778.cms
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2a5vg8/i_am_buzz_aldrin_engineer_american_astronaut_and/