17. Neil Armstrong – Possibly ESTP
Neil Armstrong became the first human being to stand on lunar soil in July, 1969. In doing so he became an instant international celebrity and an American hero. Yet he was an intensely private man, shunning the limelight. His considerable earlier achievements were largely forgotten, dwarfed by his steps on the moon. Armstrong flew in combat in Korea, where he once had to bail out of a damaged aircraft. He flew the experimental X-15 aircraft in seven separate missions. Even among his fellow test pilots and astronauts, all justly proud of their skills, Armstrong’s achievements as a pilot were legendary. As a trained aeronautical engineer, Armstrong applied sound engineering principles to his flying and to the rest of his life. After his lunar mission, Armstrong never again flew in space. He retired and later taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
As with virtually everyone on this list, Armstrong’s MBTI is debatable. Though some describe him as an extravert, there is a much stronger argument he possessed introvert characteristics. Armstrong guarded his privacy so closely that few know he once participated in an expedition to the North Pole. The expedition included Edmund Hillary, the first man to ascend to the summit of Mount Everest. Armstrong refused to allow the media to be informed of the trip, both before and after it was completed. Yet he also hosted a television series, First Flights with Neil Armstrong, and served as a spokesperson for the Chrysler Corporation. Yet at least one luminary assigns Armstrong the MBTI type of ESTP, making him an extrovert. One of his fellow astronauts on Apollo 11 said of him when he bought a farm in Ohio, “he retreated to his castle and pulled up the drawbridge”. Hardly extraverted behavior.