Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and then spent the next four decades avoiding almost everyone who wanted to talk about it. Journalist Andrew Smith, author of the book "Moondust," travels across America tracking down the people who actually knew him: a childhood friend, fellow astronauts, Houston technicians, and the barber who once sold clippings of Armstrong's hair to a collector. Their accounts build a portrait of a man who was methodical and guarded in equal measure, more comfortable running through checklists than accepting applause. Smith uses the interviews to work through the gap between the public image, first man on the moon, greatest event of the century, and the private figure who turned down interviews, avoided autographs, and kept his distance even from NASA's own celebrations of the mission. The film spends time on his Ohio upbringing and his years as a test pilot before Apollo, but its real interest is the aftermath: what it costs a person to become a permanent historical symbol against his own wishes.