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Ohio senators propose renaming NASA site for Neil Armstrong

Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown introduced legislation Thursday to honor the Ohio native by renaming the NASA station in Sandusky.

Credit: AP

Patches adorn the spacesuit worm by astronaut Neil Armstrong for the Gemini VIII mission at the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, Wednesday, June 26, 2019, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Neil Armstrong helped put Wapakoneta on the map July 20, 1969, when he became the first human to walk on the moon. The late astronaut remains larger than life in the city 60 miles (96.56 kilometers) north of Dayton, where visitors are greeted by the space base-shaped top of the space museum named for him as they exit Interstate 75. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

SANDUSKY, Ohio — Ohio's U.S. senators want Congress to rename a NASA research facility in Ohio after astronaut Neil Armstrong.

Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown introduced legislation Thursday to honor the Ohio native by renaming the NASA Plum Brook Station in Sandusky.

Portman says he raised the idea with Armstrong in 2012, a year before Armstrong's death. The senator says Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, wasn't comfortable with the attention it would bring.

Portman says he has since spoken with NASA and Armstrong's family and they support renaming the facility.

Brown says it would be a fitting tribute given Armstrong's contributions as a test pilot and astronaut.

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