5 Astronauts More Badass Than Any Action Movie Hero
#3. Neil Armstrong Stops the Centrifuge of Death
David Scott and Neil Armstrong flew Gemini 8 to test what happens when you dock a Gemini capsule with an Agena target vehicle, but they ended up testing what happens when a Gemini tries to kill its crew. The result? Astronauts kick ass. The docked ships started spinning uncontrollably. Undocking only increased the rotation, proving that the problem was with the Gemini (and the laws of inertia). Their craft sped up until the entire universe was whipping past the windows once every second, giving "Hertz" a whole new meaning. Let's face it: When you've turned the sun into a strobe light, things have gone very badly.
Everything was spinning wildly, and a false weight made it difficult to lift their heads from the seats, or even reach out their hands. The NASA report says that their "physiological limits seemed near," because "ohs#!tGONNADIE" is deeply unprofessional. Instead of blacking out, Neil Armstrong manually overrode the spaceship thruster system and fired the craft's re-entry motors, saving their lives. Doing so killed the Gemini 8 mission, but we can all agree that it was in self-defense.