Who Was Neil Armstrong?

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness or death.

In March, 1966, Neil commanded the Gemini 8 mission to dock a craft with a satellite already in orbit. This mission represented an important precursor to the future Apollo 11 mission because the plan NASA had developed for a moon landing included a Lunar Module that would leave a larger craft and then dock with it again while it was in orbit around the moon. The Gemini 8 mission went smoothly until after the docking. The craft began spinning and tumbling wildly through space; Neil finally managed to get it under control and returned the craft to Earth without completing the later stages of the planned mission. He felt discouraged, but later he learned that an equipment failure, not pilot error, was to blame for the problem. In May of 1968, Neil was piloting a craft nicknamed the “flying bedstead.” As he neared his landing zone, this craft also began to spin out of control. Neil was able to eject and parachute to safety before the plane crashed. Despite these near-misses, NASA continued to make progress toward putting a man on the moon.