Every astronaut hated this damn thing—a vehicle used to simulate the Lunar Module that had a jet engine turned 90 degrees to imitate the Moon's reduced gravity. Armstrong was particularly good at flying it.

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Here's the film without stabilization and a still photo of the crash site as Armstrong descended with his parachute.

Armstrong—who was famous for having nerves of steel—survived not only because of luck but because this wasn't the first time that he went through a dangerous situation. He experienced several incidents during his naval pilot time in Korea and his career as a test pilot at NACA's High-Speed Flight Station, which later become NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center and now is NASA's Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center.

But perhaps the worst incident—which almost ended with his life and the life of pilot David Scott—happened during the Gemini 8 mission, which showed that Armstrong had the right stuff to be the commander of the first mission that would land on the Moon.

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