Neil Armstrong's flights always went perfectly.
Neil Armstrong . After the war , he earned his bachelor 's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ( NACA ) High-Speed Flight Station , where he logged over 900 flights . He made his first space flight as command pilot of Gemini 8 in March 1966 , becoming NASA 's first civilian astronaut to fly in space . Armstrong 's second and last spaceflight was as commander of Apollo 11 , the first manned Moon landing mission in July 1969 .