I’ve been reading everything I can find about Neil Armstrong, trying to understand who is about to do this thing. The more I read, the more convinced I am that the right man is going.

Armstrong was born in Ohio, which feels personally significant even though it shouldn’t. Wapakoneta, in the western part of the state — about 140 miles from where I’m sitting. He got his student pilot license at 15, before he got his driver’s license. He flew combat missions in the Korean War and nearly lost his plane to enemy fire over a cable strung across a valley at low altitude. He was a research test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, where he flew the X-15 rocket plane to 207,000 feet — nearly 40 miles up, the edge of space. He resigned from the Navy and went to Edwards because he wanted to test aircraft, not sit on an aircraft carrier. He made his own choices, calmly, in the direction of where he wanted to go.

He went back to school after Korea, finished his engineering degree at Purdue. He applied to NASA’s second astronaut group in 1962. He was technically late with his application — it arrived a week past the deadline — and was apparently accepted anyway because someone in the selection office liked his record well enough to overlook the timing. Or the deadline was a soft deadline. Either way.

He’s quiet. That’s the thing everyone says. Not shy — he gives interviews and press conferences and does them competently — but economical. He says what’s necessary and doesn’t say what isn’t. He doesn’t perform. When Gemini 8 went into that spin and he spent thirty seconds bringing the spacecraft back under control, he was apparently calm throughout, reporting what was happening in the same tone you’d use to describe traffic on the highway.

I think about the moment when he steps onto the Moon’s surface. He will say something, because the whole world will be watching and listening and it will be the most witnessed single step in human history. What do you say in that moment? What words are adequate?

I don’t know what he’ll say. He’s apparently been thinking about it, and has said in interviews he hasn’t settled on the words yet. I believe him. Armstrong is not the type to have a prepared speech waiting; he’ll say what seems right in the moment, in the specific language of the moment, and it will be his.

I hope he knows how many of us are standing behind him in spirit. Twelve years of watching. Millions of people who followed every step and got here. We’re all going, in a way. He’s going for us.

Six days to launch.