Watch NEIL ARMSTRONG Nearly Killed In A 1968 Training Accident

In his Armstrong biography First Man, author James Hansen recounts how astronaut Alan Bean saw Armstrong that afternoon at his desk in the astronaut office. Bean then heard colleagues in the hall talking about the accident, and asked them, “When did this happen?” About an hour ago, they replied. Bean returned to Armstrong and said, “I just heard the funniest story!” Armstrong said, “What?” “I heard that you bailed out of the LLTV an hour ago.” “Yeah, I did,” replied Armstrong. “I lost control and had to bail out of the darn thing.” “I can’t think of another person,” Bean recalls, “let alone another astronaut, who would have just gone back to his office after ejecting a fraction of a second before getting killed.”

Read the rest at the Air & Space Magazine blog

Armstrong was nearly killed when the LLRV crashed. Both LLRV crashed, yet much harder on the Moon landing on the Moon w/o runways/view to sides/down and so on… it worked six times w/o a single problem!

Amazing, is not it? Certainly. Must be noted that the used engine on LLRV is NOT a rocket, but a normal turbofan engine. That engine can be easily throtled and controlled, while rocket engines are way much harder to throtle or control… not to mention that even a 500lbs engine can make a small crater into -solid CONCRETE!
(check 2nd try there: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mHuhtS3658o or here: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2005_09_10/allHovers.mpg

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Source: BoingBoing