GEMINI 7 AND 6
Top left: A water-level view of Navy divers assisting Gemini 6 crew members Stafford and Schirra to open hatches after landing in the Atlantic. Credit: NASA.
Top right: The Gemini 7 spacecraft—side view—was taken from the Gemini 6 spacecraft during rendezvous and station-keeping maneuvers at an altitude of 157 nautical miles during orbit number 7, on December 15, 1965. The two spacecraft are approximately 45 feet (14 m) apart. Credit: NASA.
Bottom: Gemini 6 astronauts Thomas Stafford (left), pilot, and Walter Schirra, command pilot, are shown during suiting up exercises at Cape Kennedy, Florida. Credit: NASA.
GEMINI 8
Gemini 8 launched on March 16, 1966, and astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott performed the first orbital docking of their spacecraft to an Agena target vehicle, the first mission to link two spacecraft together in Earth orbit. This milestone would prove vital to the success of future Apollo Moon landing missions, but problems ensued. During the rendezvous and docking maneuvers, the crew performed 9 maneuvers to rendezvous with the Agena, and docked during their fifth orbit. About 27 minutes after docking, the combined vehicles began spinning in a violent tumble and Armstrong disengaged the Gemini capsule from the Agena, thinking this action would solve the problem. But the Gemini spacecraft spun even more rapidly than when it was connected to the Agena, possibly exceeding a rate of one revolution per second. Armstrong and Scott managed to deactivate the Orbit Attitude and Maneuver System (OAMS) roll thrusters, as it had short-circuited, causing one thruster to fire continuously, causing the tumbling. To counteract the violent tumbling, the crew utilized all 16 reentry control system (RCS) thrusters to damp out the spinning, which succeeded in stabilizing the spacecraft.
Due to the premature use of the reentry control system, an immediate landing was required by Gemini safety rules, so the planned EVA and other activities were cancelled and the crew came back to Earth just over 10 hours after launch.
Top left: Astronauts Neil Armstrong (left), command pilot, and David Scott, pilot, during a photo session outside the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Mission Control Center. Credit: NASA.
Top right: Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and David R. Scott look calm and cool after their wild ride in space, sitting with their spacecraft hatches open while awaiting the arrival of the recovery ship, the USS Leonard F. Mason. The yellow flotation collar helps stabilize the spacecraft in choppy seas. Credit: NASA.
Bottom: A close view of the Agena Target Docking vehicle seen from the Gemini 8 spacecraft during rendezvous in space. Credit: NASA.
GEMINI 9
Gemini 9 was originally scheduled to launch on May 17, 1966, but was postponed when the Agena target vehicle failed to achieve orbit due to a booster failure. The replacement Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) was launched successfully into Earth orbit on June 1, but telemetry indicated that a shroud covering the adaptor had failed to jettison properly. Gemini 9 was supposed to launch that same day, but ground equipment failure resulted in a postponement until June 3.
Astronauts Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan were able to come within 26 feet (8 m) of the ATDA on the third orbit, and confirmed the launch shroud on the ATDA had failed to deploy and was blocking the docking port. The flight plan was then revised to include two passive rendezvous maneuvers instead of the docking.
Two days later, Cernan conducted a 2-hour spacewalk, the longest to date. However, he found the tasks in zero G took “four to five times more work than anticipated,” overwhelming Cernan’s environmental control system and causing his faceplate to fog up, limiting his visibility. Radio transmissions were also garbled between Cernan and Stafford, cutting the spacewalk short.
Top left: Astronauts Eugene Cernan (left), pilot, and Thomas Stafford, command pilot, discuss the postponed Gemini 9 mission just after egressing their spacecraft in the white room atop Pad 19. Credit: NASA.
Top right: The Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) as seen from the Gemini 9 spacecraft during one of their three rendezvous in space. Failure of the docking adapter protective cover to fully separate on the ATDA prevented the docking of the two spacecraft. The ATDA was described by the Gemini 9 crew as an “angry alligator.” Credit: NASA.
Bottom: Gene Cernan took this picture from the Gemini 9 spacecraft, over California, Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, during his EVA. Credit: NASA.
GEMINI 10
Launched on July 18, 1966, the Gemini 10 mission was the first flight to conduct two rendezvous and docking tests with the Agena target vehicle. Astronauts John Young and Michael Collins were on board, and Collins became the first person to visit another spacecraft in orbit. The crew performed two EVAs, along with fifteen scientific, technological and medical experiments. The mission also set a new altitude record for human spaceflight, reaching 475 miles (764 km). Young and Collins returned to Earth on July 21, 1966.
The Gemini 10 spacecraft launched on July 18, 1966. A time exposure creates the illusion of multiple rocker arms. Credit: NASA.
Twelve-year-old Billy Doyle of Virginia Beach, VA, shakes hands with Mike Collins aboard the recovery ship USS Guadalcanal. At right is John Young. Billy represented 41 youngsters permitted aboard the Guadalcanal to witness the recovery with their Naval fathers or close relatives, marking the first time dependents were permitted aboard a ship during a Gemini recovery operation. Credit: NASA.
Agena Target Docking Vehicle docked to Gemini 10 spacecraft. The “glow” is from the Agena’s primary propulsion system. Credit: NASA.
GEMINI 11
Gemini 11 launched on September 12, 1966, carrying astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon. The 3-day mission achieved a first orbit rendezvous and docking with the Agena target vehicle, which had been launched an hour and a half before Gemini 11. Each astronaut then conducted two docking exercises with the Gemini-Agena Target Vehicle (GATV). Gordon conducted a scheduled 107-minute EVA, but found the tasks to be exhausting and heavy perspiration inside his spacesuit helmet obscured his vision and finally blinded his right eye. Conrad ordered him to cancel his work and return to the cabin.
On September 14 the crew fired thrusters to raise the docked spacecraft to over 850 miles (1,368 km) above Earth, a record altitude for an astronaut mission that would stand until Apollo 8 went to the Moon.
The Agena Target Docking Vehicle launched from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral on September 12, 1966. Credit: NASA.
The Agena Target Docking Vehicle is tethered to the Gemini 11 spacecraft during its 31st revolution of Earth. Credit: NASA.
Pete Conrad (left), command pilot, and Dick Gordon (right), pilot, demonstrate tether procedure between their Gemini 11 spacecraft and the Agena Target Docking Vehicle at the post flight press conference. They use models of their spacecraft and its Agena to illustrate maneuvers. Credit: NASA.
GEMINI 12
Gemini 12 was the tenth and final crewed flight of the Gemini program, bridging the Mercury and Apollo programs. “Gemini wasn’t just a filler between the two programs,” said Chester Vaughan, “as there was a tremendous number of things we needed to learn from Gemini.”
Astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin launched on November 11, 1966. The crew performed docked maneuvers using the Agena propulsion system to change orbit and Aldrin completed three EVAs. NASA and Aldrin had worked hard ahead of the flight to come up with procedures to make the EVA less taxing than on previous flights and so Aldrin installed handrails and foot restraints to position himself in front of a work panel mounted on the rear of the docking adaptor where he performed 17 manual tasks. He then moved to the Agena and carried out another series of tasks, including use of a torque wrench while tethered, and his EVA lasted over two hours. The crew also conducted 14 scientific, medical and technological experiments, and demonstrated an automatic reentry, returning to Earth on November 15, 1966.
Astronauts Jim Lovell (right), command pilot, and Buzz Aldrin, pilot, for Gemini 12. Credit: NASA.
Jim Lovell takes his own selfie inside
the Gemini spacecraft during the Gemini 12 mission. Credit: NASA.
In one of the first space “selfies,” Aldrin is photographed with the pilot’s hatch of the spacecraft open. Credit: NASA.
CHAPTER 5
1966
AS-201, the first Saturn IB launch vehicle lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, February 26, 1966. Credit: NASA.
Man. Moon. Before 1970.
—DAVE SCOTT, Apollo astronaut
NASA, IT SEEMED, WAS ON A ROLL. As 1966 began, half of the Gemini flights had been completed, and the program was well on the way to accomplishing all its major goals by the end of the year. Several Apollo test flights were scheduled for the year and, if all went well, there were hints that NASA could be on course for the first crewed Apollo missions by the end of the year.
The first Apollo test flight, called Apollo Saturn-201, was scheduled for February. Dottie Lee took particular interest in this flight, because it would be the first true test of her Apollo heat shield. She knew that every Apollo mission would return in the same way it left Earth: in a searing mass of heat and flame. With the return velocities from the Moon predicted to be 25,000 miles (40,000 km) per hour, the Command Module (CM) plunging through the atmosphere would experience greater heat and stresses than any previous spacecraft, reaching temperatures of more 3,000°F (1,649°C). Just inches would separate the crew from the fiery exterior. A new type of protective heat shield was required.
Command Module 009, after its flight in February 1966, at the North American Aviation facility in Downey, California, for postflight testing. Image courtesy of Rich Manley.
Charles A. Bassett II (left) and Elliot M. See Jr. were supposed to fly the Gemini 9 mission. This image was taken in January 1966. Credit: NASA.
Lee and her colleagues conducted a series of calculations to measure the thermodynamic characteristics of reentry and—with wind tunnel tests, data from the Mercury missions and mathematical predictions—Lee and her colleagues computed the performance required for a heat shield for Apollo.
“From our tests, we knew the only material that could get us back from the Moon was an ablater,” she said. They had tested several different types of protective materials (such as Teflon) but finally determined the best option was an ablative material that would melt and erode away the accumulated heat of atmospheric reentry while protecting the spacecraft. And the larger Apollo CM needed a new type of ablative material. Lee worked with several companies, and after three years of research, NASA chose Avco Corporation in Lowell, Massachusetts. They had developed a new type of epoxy resin called Avocoat, with special fiberglass additives. The resin would be injected into a steel honeycomb mesh and bonded to the shell of the CM. Lee traveled to the Avco plant and watched as technicians used special heated injection guns to meticulously fill the four hundred thousand tiny holes in the honeycomb matrix with the ablative material. Lee touched the ablator right out of the gun; it felt like a warm putty entwined with fibers. After it hardened, this would be the material that would keep the interior of the spacecraft comfortable and safe while an inferno raged outside.
Dr. Robert R. Gilruth (far right) introduces the Apollo 1 crew during a press conference in Houston. From the left are astronauts Roger Chaffee, Edward H. White II and Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom. Credit: NASA.
Lee anticipated the February 26 flight because so far, all the calculations and tests had been theoretical. Nothing was better than real, hard data. But the launch was a huge disappointment. Several malfunctions occurred, mostly minor, but three were serious. First, the propulsion system on the Service Module (SM) malfunctioned. Second, an electrical fault caused a loss of steering control. And third—the problem that affected Lee most—a short-circuit caused the loss of the data on the heat shield. She knew she’d have to wait several months for the next launch to get the data she so desperately wanted.
Back in her office the following Monday morning, February 28, Lee was still feeling disappointed when she received a phone call from her husband, John, with shocking news. Two astronauts, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, had been killed earlier that morning in a plane crash. They were flying together in a T-38 jet amid deteriorating weather conditions of fog and snow, heading to St. Louis, Missouri. Upon making their landing approach at Lambert Field in St. Louis, See, an experienced naval aviator, misjudged the approach, coming in too low and too fast. They were killed instantly when they crashed into the nearby McDonnell Douglas factory, where the Gemini spacecraft were being manufactured. See and Bassett were supposed to fly the upcoming Gemini 9 flight and were on their way to McDonell Douglas for training. Part of the structure was severely damaged from the crash, and had the plane hit the other side of the factory, it could have slammed into the assembly line, perhaps killing hundreds of McDonnell’s workers and destroying at least two Gemini spacecraft.
The accident sent shockwaves of grief through NASA. Dottie Lee had always known that getting to space was risky. She’d seen her share of rocket failures and experienced other setbacks. And she also knew going to the Moon was especially dangerous—in the back of her mind, she had considered the high likelihood of losing astronauts before reaching that goal. But losing them here on Earth seemed especially tragic. Not getting her heat shield data now seemed trivial.
But Lee had no doubt NASA would continue toward the Moon, because everyone she worked with was motivated to succeed and to do it right.
Lee would have to wait until August until the next test, when a boilerplate version of the CM was launched on a Saturn IB, with trajectories that enabled a simulation of the lunar reentry speeds. When they got the data, it showed the outer surface of the CM reached 2,700°F (1,500°C). The interior remained a comfortable 70°F (21°C).
Another test flight in July verified the S-IVB stage design for Saturn V was restartable, and that meant plans could proceed for the first crewed flight, Apollo Saturn-204, or AS-204. NASA announced astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee as the first crew for Apollo. According to NASA’s announcement, the plans for the astronauts’ test flight in Earth orbit included the intent “to verify spacecraft crew operations and CSM subsystems performance for a mission of up to 14 days.” These astronauts were three of NASA’s best and brightest: Grissom, the second American in space and a veteran astronaut; White, a West Point graduate who conducted the first American spacewalk on Gemini 4; and Chaffee, a rookie but considered one of the agency’s most talented engineers. The astronauts and ground crew continued training and testing in order to meet the optimistic goal—but in the meantime, problems, glitches and disagreements on the ground kept everyone at NASA occupied.
WHEN ELBERT KING GAME TO WORK AT the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), he just assumed everyone knew the reason that NASA was going to the Moon. To King, the justification for Apollo was as clear as when he looked through his geologist’s hand lens to see close-up details of sandstone or shale: NASA was landing on the Moon to collect rocks because that’s where all the scientific information could be found. But King quickly discovered lunar samples were not the dominant aspect of Apollo. In fact, science held a low standing on the Apollo priority list.
Plans for the transportation of lunar materials to and from the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. Credit: NASA.
Nonetheless, initial plans were unfolding for the astronauts to collect a few Moon rocks. King and his new colleague, geochemist Don Flory, had been hired to design airtight sample return containers for the lunar materials. But the two scientists realized no one was giving any forethought to how the rocks should be handled once they were on Earth.
King and Flory showed up in James McLane Jr.’s MSC Facilities Office, expressing their concerns.
“Does anyone around the Center have a small vacuum chamber where we can open these boxes?” they asked. “The scientific integrity of the samples would be compromised if they are exposed to Earth’s atmosphere. And what are the plans for how are they going to be studied and then stored?”
That conversation
birthed the concept of MSC’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL). But what began as a seemingly straightforward idea of building a facility to store and study rocks from the Moon quickly became a power struggle between engineers who would build the facility, scientists who wanted to study the rocks and members of the medical community who felt they needed to save the world from biological disaster—not to mention even more squabbling between the various governmental agencies and politicians.
McLane and King ended up in the middle of it all. To achieve the goal of completing the laboratory in time to receive samples from the first Moon landing, MSC director Robert Gilruth instituted a board of experts in May 1966 that was given the “authority to make policy decisions in minimum time.” Some of the committee members were appointed by NASA Headquarters and were primarily scientists who had been selected as principal investigators for the proposed experiments and study of the lunar samples.
Astronaut Michael Collins on the right during a tour of Lunar Receiving Lab (LRL) at MSC with LRL Administrative Assistant Richard Wright on the left. They are among the secure glove boxes that would be used to safely study lunar materials. Credit: NASA.
The initial plan called for a small clean room of approximately 100 square feet (9 sq. m) where the sample boxes could be opened under vacuum conditions and repackaged for distribution to various researchers. But some scientists and NASA officials concluded just a single room wouldn’t be sufficient and quickly came up with a plan for a 2,500-square-foot (232-sq.-m) research facility where the lunar samples would not only be stored but studied as well. After more discussion, an 8,000-square-foot (743-sq.-m) version was proposed.
Eight Years to the Moon Page 18
