He learned to fly before he could drive. At 20, a cable strung across a Korean hillside ripped three feet off his wing at 350 miles an hour, and he nursed the plane to the sea before ejecting with half a second to spare. A decade later, he stopped a spacecraft spinning at one revolution per second using nothing but his nerve. Then NASA gave him a $678 pay rise and told him to go and land on the Moon.

In this episode, Johnny Vaughan and Gavin "The Woodman" Woods take on Neil Armstrong, the quiet kid from Ohio who became a naval aviator, a test pilot in a job with a one-in-four survival rate, the first civilian astronaut, and the first human being to set foot on another world. All while being described as the calmest man alive.

What You'll Hear in This Episode:

Flying before driving - How a kid from small-town Ohio got his pilot's license at 16, before he was even allowed behind a steering wheel

The Gemini 8 death spin – How Armstrong saved himself and David Scott from a spacecraft rotating once every second, and why NASA knew he was their man

40 seconds of fuel - The terrifying final moments of the Apollo 11 landing, when Armstrong took manual control to dodge a boulder field

🎥 Watch the full episode now on the Bloomin' Legends YouTube channel!

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Bloomin' Legends is a Global production

Produced by Ben Fairclough and Cassie Merritt

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