When a thruster became locked open on the Genimi 8, during a training missions, Neil Armstrong and David R. Scott were nearly spun out into space with not enough fuel to get back to Earth.

A false indicator light triggered NASA to warn John Glenn that his landing bag had deployed, and he was in danger of injury during his water landing without it. The blinking light turned out to be false.

Alexey Leonov was nearly killed during his first spacewalk. The vacuum of space inflated his suit and he had to vent oxygen in order to get back inside his spacecraft.

During the moon landing Neil Armstrong overshot their landing spot and had to act quickly to avoid crashing into the moon with only 30 seconds of landing fuel left.

In 1969 a lightning bolt struck the Apollo 12 after it had launched. All systems were dead but someone at mission control remembered an obscure work-around that rebooted their systems.

When an oxygen tank exploded on the Apollo 13, it severely crippled their ability to survive. They made it back to Earth relying on minimal heat, water and life support.

Locks failed to disengage, holding sections of the Soyuz 18 spacecraft together during re-entry. This overloaded the parachutes and caused them to hit the side of a mountain. The parachute snagged some vegetation preventing the crew from falling down a 500 foot drop.

A chemical oxygen canister ignited on the space station Mir threatening to consume the entire station. They spent all their fire extinguisher and eventually put it out.

The space station Mir collided with an unmanned spacecraft during a resupply mission. It suffered damaged support systems but the station was not lost.

In 1985 the Challenger's engines shut down prematurely after leaving Earth. They had to take a low flight path and then get right back to Earth. The following January the Challenger suffered its fatal disaster.