One reason why Neil Armstrong got the job
An evening pause: This short clip from the Discovery Science series Rocket Science illustrates one reason Neil Armstrong got the job to land the first spacecraft on the Moon, even though it shows Armstrong crashing his test vehicle!
The man was cool-headed. Not only did Armstrong not panic when a thruster failed, he kept trying to regain control of the craft until the last moment, ejecting less than a second before impact. Then, he was calm about it afterward, hardly mentioning the incident to others.