d and think about what it would be like if your bed could fly?

Hi, I'’m astronomer Amy Mainzer, and I'’m here with Christian Gelzer who'’s the historian at NASA'’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.

So, Christian, this thing didn'’t really fly, did it?

- It really did.

It'’s the lunar landing research vehicle and it was used to train the "Apollo" astronauts for landing on the moon.

- I guess you can'’t really go to school to learn how to land on the moon, can you?

- Not in 1962, '’63, or '’64, no.

It'’s pretty hard.

- This thing had an unusual nickname.

It'’s sometimes called the flying bedstead.

Why'’s it called the flying bedstead?

- Well, in part, because I think some people think it looks like a flying bedstead or a bed frame, and in part because it actually flew.

It would take off vertically.

There'’s a jet engine not like this in most airplanes but aligned vertically, so it would take off vertically, and then it had thrusters at the corners that allowed the pilot to be able to roll, maneuver, cant, move forward and back, and then bring the vehicle down and land vertically, much like the actual lunar module would.

- That'’s pretty cool.

- I would say.

- Was it hard for the astronauts to learn how to fly this thing?

- The first couple of flights, it'’s difficult, but Armstrong'’s comment afterward was "It felt like I had done it before," and it was because of flying this.

- Christian, do you think I could fly it?

- Um, I'’m afraid not, Amy.

This one'’s been parked for awhile and there'’s no jet engine in there anymore that works.

- I guess I'’ll just have to sit on my bed and imagine that my bed can land on the moon.

- You and me both.