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an interesting implication of this is that the government probably didn't want to issue them life insurance because then they would have to explain why they don't do that for all military personnel

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The US government does issue life insurance for all military personnel. It's a nominal cost (20 bucks a month IIRC) for something like 400k of coverage. It's been around since 1914[1].

As far as I know all of the astronauts were military at that time, so they probably would have been covered by this program. There could be any number of nuances I'm not aware of though.

[1]https://benefits.va.gov/benefits/infographics/pdfs/timeline_...

I don't know about any of the other Apollo astronauts, and I wasn't around at the time, but I do remember once reading that a big deal was made about Neil Armstrong being a civilian when he landed on the moon.

Wikipedia at least says you're right -- he was a Naval Aviator and test pilot, but must have left the service when he went to NASA.

When I was in we had life insurance. Before every deployment they had lawyers come in and walk us through creating a will, explaining the benefit, etc.

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