“If the rocket got out of sight”: Henry Pohl interview, February 9, 1999, JSC Oral History Project.
“bearing down on you”: Agle, “Riding the Titan II.”
jets used ejection seats: Guy Thibodaux interview, October 20, 1999, JSC Oral History Project.
“My Gemini spacecraft”: Schirra and Billings, Schirra’s Space, 157–58.
that would include lunar landings: Launius and McCurdy, Spaceflight, 208.
“This nation has tossed its cap”: Quoted in Thompson, Light This Candle, 295.
“This effort is expensive”: Bilstein, Orders of Magnitude, 71; Ward, Dr. Space, 132.
ever saw him do so: Neufeld, Von Braun, 390.
forced to abandon him: Portree and Treviño, Walking to Olympus, 2.
“There was only a sense”: Quoted in Shepard and Slayton, Moon Shot, 172.
“the gap is not closing”: Ibid., 174.
an EVA in space: Oberg, “Russia Meant to Win the Moon Race.”
Eight: The Walk, and a Sky Gone Berserk
“you have concerns about”: Quoted in Leopold, Calculated Risk, 200.
“We’re not playing Mickey Mouse”: Quoted in Evans, Escaping the Bonds of Earth, 256.
WE ARE 301 MAN-ORBITS: United Press International, Gemini: America’s Historic Walk in Space, chapter 2.
military space stations: Baker, History of Manned Space Flight, 215; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 216.
“All astronauts are created equal”: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 136.
a rookie astronaut: For valuable insights into Slayton’s crew selection methods, see Swanson, “Before This Decade Is Out,” 337–38.
who had lived in it: Kenneth A. Young interview, June 6, 2001, JSC Oral History Project.
became even thicker: Schefter, The Race, 219.
“a capable pilot”: Stafford and Cassutt, We Have Capture, 78.
their Gemini spacecraft: Ibid., 79–82; McMichael, “Losing the Moon.”
consequences for the program: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 152.
shaken up by See’s death: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 168.
if it ever became operational: See Hansen, First Man, chapters 15 and 16, for more on Armstrong’s X-15 experiences.
“consumed by learning”: Quoted in ibid., 31.
“bridge breaking”: Armstrong et al., First on the Moon, 144.
“He was a very steadfast person”: Hansen, First Man, 127.
Many of his flights were dangerous: Ibid., 134–36.
“at the margins of knowledge”: Life, September 27, 1963.
the selection panel’s first meeting: Hansen, First Man, 195.
They turned up the cockpit lights: Roundup, April 1, 1966.
would almost certainly follow: New York Times, March 18, 1966.
two full revolutions per second: Barbree, “Live from Cape Canaveral,” 115. Lovell and Kluger, in Lost Moon, page 10, assert that it was five hundred rpm. In a March 21, 1966, story five days after the flight, the New York Times reported: “In the delayed film frames, the rotation appears even faster than the once a second the space agency said had occurred.” In the May 2, 1966, issue of Missiles and Rockets, page 28, in a story on medical information shared between the U.S. and Soviet space programs, reference was made to “the high roll rate of GT-8, which reached one revolution per 0.8 second.” Neil Armstrong, not one to exaggerate, said in a 2008 Discovery Channel documentary entitled When We Left Earth: “When the roll rate increased to more than four hundred degrees per second, our vision was beginning to degrade.”
“Physiological limits”: “Gemini VIII Technical Debriefing,” 60.
gone to worms: This phrase is used in a press release authored by the two astronauts shortly after the mission and released by World Book Encyclopedia, which shared in the rights to the NASA astronauts’ stories.
“I gotta cage my eyeballs”: Chaikin, A Man on the Moon, 168.
found the culprit: Due to a problem in the gauge, the crew believed that the propellant for the reentry control system was down to approximately a third when it was actually closer to 50 percent. See Gemini Program Mission Report: Gemini VIII, 376.
The crew was healthy: The following sources were consulted for this account of Gemini 8: Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans, 308–21; Hansen, First Man, chapter 19; Scott et al., Two Sides of the Moon, chapter 6; Kraft, Flight, 253–55; “Gemini VIII Technical Debriefing”; “Gemini VIII Composite Air-to-Ground and Onboard Voice Tape Transcription”; and Gemini Program Mission Report: Gemini VIII.
“It was a non-trivial situation”: Abbey-Callaghan file, Robert Sherrod Collection, NASA History Office.
“If we had heard”: Hansen, First Man, 271.
save its occupants: Missiles and Rockets, April 4, 1966.
Soviet shot at the moon: Time, March 16, 1966; Hix, “Laika and Her Comrades”; Burgess and Dobbs, Animals in Space, 218–19.
“Americans no longer”: Life, December 2, 1966.
“almost like working”: Quoted in Hall, Space Pioneers, 395.
“all the flexibility”: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 134.
might lose consciousness: Glynn Lunney, interviewed in the 2008 Discovery Channel documentary When We Left Earth.
selected for the mission: Mark Wade, “Gemini LORV,” Encyclopedia Astronautica.
1,993 hours in space: Hansen, First Man, 296.
Nine: Inferno
“We just became anesthetized”: Dallas Morning News, April 13, 1967.
his Mercury mission: Carpenter and Stoever, For Spacious Skies, 325.
Apollo program in Houston: Quoted in Bizony, The Man Who Ran the Moon, 139.
specifications provided by Faget’s office: Brooks et al., Chariots for Apollo, 113; Davis-Floyd et al., Space Stories.
“item by item”: Brooks et al., Chariots for Apollo, 113.
true operational conditions: Ibid., 164.
Soviet space program: Harvey, “The 1963 Soviet Space Platform Project.”
with mixed results: Quest (Fall 1993), 37.
on the lunar surface: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 147.
“a more distant objective”: Missiles and Rockets, May 2, 1966.
“who is right and who is wrong”: Russian Scientific Research Center for Space Documentation, Roads to Space, 88.
They received no answer: Pesavento, “A Review of Rumoured Launch Failures,” 389.
“long and fatal illness”: Quoted in Burrows, This New Ocean, 404.
Go ahead and land on the moon: DeGroot, Dark Side of the Moon, 201; Young et al., Journey to Tranquility, 285.
the job done right: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 3; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 191; Grissom and Still, Starfall, 260.
“a reporter’s delight”: Dallas Morning News, January 28, 1967.
first flight to the moon: Leopold, Calculated Risk, 220; Time, June 11, 1965.
an occasional profanity: Time, February 3, 1967.
“a really great boy”: Quoted in Lovell and Kluger, Lost Moon, 24.
Grissom had with Gemini: MacKinnon and Baldanza, Footprints, 240.
former Mercury operations director: Quoted in Leopold, Calculated Risk, 236.
for his thoroughness: Ibid., 252.
“This is the worst spacecraft”: Al Shepard interview, February 20, 1998, JSC Oral History Project.
“He thought they should be working”: Grissom and Still, Starfall, 181.
“They’ll fire me”: Young and Hansen, Forever Young, 116; MacKinnon and Baldanza, Footprints, 240.
“You’re going to be in there”: Schirra and Billings, Schirra’s Space, 183.
Grissom’s Block I version: Shayler, Disasters and Accidents, 102.
back in Houston: Grissom and Still, Starfall, 181, 183.
something they didn’t have: Dallas Morning News, March 10, 1967.
to complete the job: Much of this account of the fire and events following it are based on “Report of Apollo
204 Review Board”; Leopold, Calculated Risk, 235–60; Lovell and Kluger, Lost Moon, 14–20; Shayler, Disasters and Accidents, 97–115; and Chaikin, “Apollo’s Worst Day.” Slayton’s actions are based on the account in his book Deke!
take up to space with him: Washington Post, January 26, 2017.
She didn’t either: Grissom and Still, Starfall, 188–89.
talked to Lowell for a few minutes: Author interview with Chuck Friedlander, May 7, 2017.
further testing for a while: Worden and French, Falling to Earth, 85.
from the contractor: Lovell and Kluger, Lost Moon, 22–25.
they soon found out: Chuck Deiterich interview, May 16, 2000, JSC Oral History Project; Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 330–31.
“It’s horrible!”: Murray and Cox, Apollo, 204.
congregated in a back room: Houston and Heflin, Go, Flight!, 98–99; Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 191–202.
“Worst I ever had”: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 190.
“nothing would be the same again”: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 197.
like Faget could understand: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 173; Murray and Cox, Apollo, 215–16. In the latter account, several “senior people in the program” were present, and the gathering occurred “less than two weeks after the fire.”
thought of that moment: Author interview with Chuck Friedlander, May 7, 2017.
Ten: Recovery
“We were given the gift”: William J. Cromie interview with Neil Armstrong, February 1969, in Armstrong biographical file, Robert Sherrod Apollo Collection, NASA History Office.
and nodded to her: E-mail from Chuck Friedlander to the author, September 3, 2017.
“empty-slot flyovers”: Hall, Space Pioneers, 397.
“a reasonable possibility”: Dallas Morning News, January 28, 1967.
admiration it had a decade ago: Lambright, Powering Apollo, 159.
“These words will remind you”: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 204.
“If you are really tough”: Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 167.
Eight hours later: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 76.
electroshock treatment: Frank Borman interview, April 13, 1999, JSC Oral History Project; Borman and Serling, Countdown, 176.
in a mental institution: John F. Yardley interview, June 29, 1998, JSC Oral History Project; McMichael, “Losing the Moon.”
punning duels with Wally Schirra: Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 100.
a few at NASA took up: Kraft, Flight, 274–75. Shea would deny this later, but by any reasonable measure, he suffered a nervous breakdown, and several of his NASA contemporaries have attested to that.
“a poor administrator”: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 178; Kraft, Flight, 274–75; George Mueller interview, September 27, 1998, JSC Oral History Project.
“austere budget”: Dallas Morning News, March 12, 1967.
had been carried out: Robert Sherrod interview with George M. Low, November 7, 1969, box 12, file 22, Low interview, Christopher C. Kraft Papers, Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
“Tell him”: Lambright, Powering Apollo, 156.
what should have been there: Burgess and Doolan, Fallen Astronauts, 210.
approved 1,341 alterations: Crouch, Aiming for the Stars, 212.
“until we make”: Quoted in Lambright, Powering Apollo, 183.
“Be flexible”: Stafford and Cassutt, We Have Capture, 108–9; Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 164–65.
“include the most spectacular”: Oberg, Red Star in Orbit, 91.
lost spacefarers: Quoted in Brooks et al., Chariots for Apollo, 227.
circumlunar flight in the near future: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 282.
some of the firsts involved: Newkirk, Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight, 46.
A moon rocket, unquestionably: Day, “The Moon in the Crosshairs,” part 2.
a check for the difference: Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth, 191–92; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 205.
regain its confidence: Brooks et al., Chariots for Apollo, 230.
training habits had become lax: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 270, 282; Stafford and Cassutt, We Have Capture, 102; Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 130–31; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 191.
booted them from his crew: Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 77–80; author e-mail correspondence with Cunningham; French, “I Worked with NASA, Not for NASA.” In the last interview, Schirra denied the idea that he would take on a job like caretaker commander, although of course, he might not have wanted to admit it. One possible supporting fact is revealed in this statement from Slayton: “I had put another crew in training for the second manned Apollo without making an announcement” (Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 166).
“We labored day and night”: Schirra and Billings, Schirra’s Space, 191.
without his approval: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 181–84; Lovell and Kluger, Lost Moon, 32–33; Kraft, Flight, 283; Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 169–70.
had received since flight school: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 186–87.
scenario he could think of: Guenter Wendt interview, January 16, 1998, JSC Oral History Project.
“It sounded reckless”: Cortright, Apollo Expeditions to the Moon.
put on standby status: Lewis, Appointment on the Moon, 408–23.
Eleven: Phoenix and Earthrise
“To see the Earth”: Archibald MacLeish, “A Reflection,” New York Times, December 25, 1968.
reentry and splashdown: Flight Dynamics Controllers, Oral Histories of NASA Flight Dynamics Controllers, 169–74.
human mistake in wiring: von Braun, Space Frontier, 203.
usefulness to the agency: French, “I Worked with NASA, Not for NASA.”
“a photo finish”: Quoted in Turnill, The Moonlandings, 134.
off instrument readings: Ibid., 132.
“He was never the same”: Kraft, Flight, 292; John Logsdon interview with Robert Gilruth, August 26, 1969, box 12, file 11, Gilruth interview, Robert Gilruth Papers, Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
would be missed: Bizony, The Man Who Ran the Moon, 212–14; Kraft, Flight, 292.
“I’ve had it”: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 178; Quoted in Baker, History of Manned Space Flight, 310.
Wally Schirra Bitch Circus: Kraft, Flight, 289. He also said, referring to Apollo 7, “We had a failure in the pilot” (Chris Kraft interview, May 23, 2008, JSC Oral History Project).
“pull the plug on Wally Schirra”: Liebergot and Harland, Apollo EECOM, 128; Gene Kranz interview, January 8, 1999, JSC Oral History Project.
“Somebody down there”: Quoted in French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 218.
wasn’t as uncooperative: Dallas Morning News, October 16, 1968. The paper also reported that on the fourth day of the flight, Cunningham said, “Well, so far I’ve been able to resist pretty much getting a cold.” See also French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 215.
threatening mutiny: Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 127–32; Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 143–50.
“I wasn’t going to put anybody”: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 219; Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 157–58; Liebergot and Harland, Apollo EECOM, 130; Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 173.
“101 percent successful”: Quoted in Evans, Escaping the Bonds of Earth, 452; Wilford, We Reach the Moon, 171.
EVA and docking thrown in: French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 328–29, 337.
“You weren’t really doing anything”: Ibid., 337–38.
“tightly wound little sumbitch”: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 178.
the moon in their sights: Chris Kraft interview, May 23, 2008, JSC Oral History Project; Borman and Serling, Countdown, 189; Seamans, Project Apollo, 108; Kraft, Flight, 284. In recent years, there has been skepticism that the Soviet threat to orbi
t the moon first was the main reason behind NASA’s decision to send Apollo 8 around the moon—or even that it was a factor at all. It has been claimed that Frank Borman was the only legitimate source for this, since the Russian threat was mentioned by no one else, NASA official or otherwise, and some have concluded that Borman’s account was erroneous. But there are other mentions by NASA’s top administrators of the Soviet threat and how it affected the Apollo 8 circumlunar decision. In discussing the idea, which was broached while Seamans and Webb were in Vienna for a conference, Seamans wrote later in Project Apollo, “He [Webb] invited me to his room…to tell me of his recent telephone calls from Tom Paine, NASA’s Deputy Administrator at that time. Tom proposed a circumlunar flight for the next Apollo mission. He advised Jim that there were indications of an early Soviet manned mission to the Moon.” Christopher Kraft, in his book Flight, page 284, quotes George Low as saying, after mentioning the idea to Kraft: “It would ace the Russians and take a lot of pressure off Apollo.” And in his JSC Oral History Project cited here, Kraft says of his meeting with Robert Gilruth and George Low in which they first discussed the change: “So they knew the situation with the Russians better than I did, and they said, ‘It would also give us a leg up on the Russians, because it appears that the Russians may be trying to do the same thing.’ Well, that was in Aviation Week anyway, so I knew that was public knowledge.… So Gilruth said, ‘We ought to call Deke in.’ We did. We got him on the phone. He came in. We talked about it for another half hour or so.… We went out of that meeting with Deke going to see what he could do in terms of crew training.” It’s hard to believe that Slayton was not given the same information about the Russian threat, and it’s perfectly understandable that he told Borman about it. Borman also repeated his conversation with Slayton and Slayton’s mention of the Russian threat at other times, most prominently in the TV special NOVA: To the Moon, which aired in 1999. In it, Borman is interviewed with Bill Anders and Jim Lovell, his Apollo 8 crewmates, and in answer to a question from Lovell about what Slayton said to Borman, he replies, “No, he said that the Russians—that the CIA had heard that the Russians were going to launch before the end of the year, and Low was coming up with this plan to send Apollo 8 to the moon, and what did I think about it?” The threat of a Soviet lunar mission may not have been the primary reason for the switch, but it’s quite believable that it was the first one Slayton provided to Borman. Finally, several astronauts—Anders, Rusty Schweickart, and Buzz Aldrin among them—are also on the record as stating their belief that the Soviet threat to send a manned spaceflight around the moon was the primary reason that a lunar-orbit mission was moved up in the schedule. See French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 299 and 337; Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth, 191.
Shoot for the Moon Page 40
