Inaugural Neil Armstrong Space Prize

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Closing Thank You’s

Good evening, everyone. As we bring this memorable evening to a close, I want to begin with a simple thank you.

  • Thank you to our distinguished guests from across government, industry, academia, and the international space community.
  • Thank you to the members of the Armstrong family, Carole and sons Rick and Mark for entrusting us with Neil Armstrong’s legacy. 
  • Thank you to our selection and advisory committees for the extraordinary care they devoted to establishing this prize and identifying its inaugural recipients. 
  • And thank you to everyone who joined us to celebrate what has truly been an inspiring evening.

Congratulations to the Recipients

  • Most importantly, congratulations once again to the members of the Falcon 9 Booster Landing Team.
  • Tonight we recognized an achievement that has fundamentally changed what is possible in spaceflight. 
  • The engineering challenges this team solved did far more than enable rockets to land. They helped make access to space more frequent, more affordable, and more reliable, creating opportunities for scientific discovery, commercial innovation and international collaboration that simply did not exist before. 
  • That is exactly the kind of achievement this prize was created to recognize.

The Spirit of Neil Armstrong

  • Neil Armstrong understood that exploration has never been about a single moment of triumph.
  • His first step onto the lunar surface captured the world’s imagination, but that moment rested on decades of patient work by thousands of engineers, scientists, technicians, and visionaries whose names most people will never know.
  • That spirit is reflected in the Neil Armstrong Space Prize.

The Purpose of This Prize

  • This award is not intended simply to celebrate remarkable accomplishments. 
  • It is meant to recognize work that has had a consequential impact on humanity — work that expands knowledge, creates new possibilities, and leaves the world better equipped to tackle the challenges ahead.

Why Space Exploration Matters

  • Progress in space has always been an international endeavor, and its benefits belong to all of humanity. 
  • Whether we are improving communications, advancing national security, enabling scientific discovery, or preparing for human exploration farther into the solar system, every meaningful step forward builds on the work of those who came before and creates opportunities for those who will follow.
  • That is why recognizing consequential contributions matters.

A Team Endeavor

  • Neil Armstrong embodied those qualities throughout his life.
  • Although he will forever be remembered for one unforgettable sentence, he never stopped reminding us that exploration is, above all, a team endeavor.
  • It is fitting, then, that the first recipients of a prize bearing his name are a team whose work has already changed the trajectory of spaceflight.

Looking Ahead

  • To everyone here this evening: Whether you represent a space agency, a company, a university, or a research organization, I hope you leave encouraged to continue pushing the frontiers of discovery, innovation, and human achievement.
  • I also hope you’ll help us identify those whose work deserves to be recognized next. 
  • Nominations for the 2027 Neil Armstrong Space Prize are now open, and we look forward to learning of the remarkable individuals and teams whose contributions continue to shape humanity’s future in space. 

Closing Thought and Final Thank Yous

  • Finally, I’ll close with the words of Neil Armstrong, who reminded us that "mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand."
  • May we never lose that sense of wonder.
  • Thank you for being with us this evening. Congratulations again to our inaugural laureates, and thank you all for joining this evening’s celebration.