Flying to the Moon

by Michael Collins

  When the second stage, or upper half, of the Titan separated from the first stage, I thought we had blown up. For a fraction of a second the view out my window changed abruptly. Black sky turned instantly to fiery yellow and I could see bits and pieces of something streaking past the window. However, as quickly as it had disappeared, the serene black sky reappeared, and I stopped worrying and began to enjoy the ride. As we approached orbit, the G forces built up past 7, and I felt a heavy hand pushing down on my chest. Then, suddenly, the engine cut off, the Gs went to zero, and we knew we had arrived.

  Being weightless didn’t feel too strange. I remained strapped in my seat, so about the only difference I noted was a feeling of fullness in my head, and my arms floated up in front of my face, like the front legs of a praying mantis. Also, of course, there was no force pushing me down into my seat, and my body bobbed back and forth against the shoulder straps and seat belt as I moved. There was no doubt that we were weightless, however, as the cockpit was suddenly filled with tiny bits of debris that had come out of their crevices. There were small nuts and bolts, and screws, and tiny fragments of metal and rubber. They floated aimlessly, until one by one they were slowly sucked into the intake screen of our air-conditioning system.

  Outside my window the view was spectacular—a glorious vision of sea and sky I will never forget. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any time to relax and enjoy it, because the spacecraft plunged abruptly into darkness and I had to begin measuring star angles with my sextant, and doing the arithmetic to figure out where we wanted to go to find our first Agena. It took me a couple of hours to do this, and I really had a difficult time. I could see the stars all right in the dark, but it was next to impossible to find the horizon at night. There was no clear-cut line between black sky and black earth. At any rate, when I compared my answers (expressed in terms of when and how much we should change our speed and direction) with the ground’s answers, the two were different. I had flunked my first space test, and even though it was not an important one, I felt bad about it.

  Using the ground’s instructions, and our own rocket engines, we changed orbit several times, and slowly approached our Agena. Finally, slightly over five hours after lift-off, John docked with it, smoothly moving the nose of the Gemini into the Agena’s docking collar. The only problem was that we had used too much fuel in finding it, and that meant we might have to cut short some of our other plans for the next two days. I hoped not. Our next job was to find the second Agena, high above us. To change our orbit this time, we used the rocket engine on the far end of the docked Agena. That meant the rocket was on our nose, instead of behind us as usual, and its thrust would push us forward against the instrument panel instead of back into our seats. When the time came, I sent instructions to the Agena by pressing buttons on a small black box, and the Agena responded by lighting its engine. Boy, was that a surprise! First I thought nothing was going to happen, because I could see big blobs of fuel coming out of the engine and disappearing in the distance, like a string of snowballs. Then suddenly, WHAM!, the engine started, kicking like a mule and plastering us up against our shoulder straps. The whole sky turned a light orange color for the fourteen seconds the engine was scheduled to fire. Then another jerk, and we were weightless again. For half a minute afterward, the sky was filled with sparks, fireballs, and globs of fuel. Some seemed as small as fireflies, others as large as basketballs. Some particles floated off slowly, others whizzed away at a great rate. The entire Agena seemed surrounded with a golden halo that slowly faded into the blackness of space. “That was really something!” exclaimed John, and I agreed with him. “When that baby lights, there’s no doubt about it.” We were now in a slow climb up to 475 miles, and we had a chance to grab our first meal and some sleep.

  I didn’t sleep too well that night, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, astronauts usually find they are too keyed up by the events of launch day to really relax the first night. Also, it was strange sleeping in a cockpit instead of a bed. My hands kept floating up in front of me, and I wished I had pockets or somewhere to put them to keep them out of the way of all the switches on the instrument panel. I didn’t want to bump the wrong switch accidentally while I slept. Maybe I should have stuffed my hands in my mouth. Also, my head didn’t feel right somehow with no pillow to push against. Finally, I found a little corner up above my head, to the right, and I discovered that if I wedged my head up into it, it felt more natural. I ignored my floating hands, and dozed off fitfully for a couple of hours. I needed to get as much rest as possible, since the next day was to be a busy one, and included my standing up in the open hatch and photographing a number of stars. Any time we dumped our cabin pressure and opened the hatch to the vacuum of space, we had to be extremely careful, and I didn’t want to increase the chances of my making a mistake just because I was tired.

  When the time came to open the hatch, everything worked beautifully. I opened it at dusk, and it moved easily in my hand, with no hint of binding. I stood up then, in the dark, and got my first good look at the universe all around me. Inside the Gemini, the view was limited by the tiny windows, and even more if you had an Agena stuck on your nose, but now I was able to look up and down and left and right. Stars were everywhere: above me on all sides, even below me somewhat, down next to that murky horizon. The stars were bright and they were steady, with none of the twinkle we normally see on earth. The twinkle is caused by the starlight having to penetrate the atmosphere, which moves and shifts, but up here above the atmosphere the stars burn steadily and brightly. The moon was not in view, and the surface of the earth was barely discernible. Occasionally there was a flash of lightning below us which illuminated a string of thunderstorms. There was a stately and graceful feeling of motion, as we glided across the world in total silence, and with absolute smoothness. My job was to photograph half a dozen stars which had been chosen because they were young and were giving off a lot of ultraviolet light. I held the camera shutter open for twenty seconds for each star. John, inside the spacecraft, counted the seconds for me.

  As dawn approached, we finished up this work and prepared for our next experiment. The sun came up, as it always does in space, with a fierce burst of piercing white light. When it did, my eyes began to water, despite the fact that I had pulled my head down inside my neck ring, like a turtle, to avoid its direct glare. My eyes were watering so badly that I couldn’t see the camera I was holding clearly enough to change some settings on it. I handed it inside to John and asked him to help me. Then I got the shock of my life! John couldn’t see either, as his eyes were watering as badly as mine. What a fine mess we had on our hands, with the hatch open and neither of us able to see. I threw away some additional photographic equipment I was holding in my other hand, and prepared to get back inside the spacecraft. I had practiced this so many times in the zero G airplane that it seemed very natural now. Fortunately, there were no straps or hoses dangling loose. The hatch slid smoothly shut, all the way shut, and I was able to lock it without a great deal of tugging. Then we found the switches necessary to begin filling up the cabin with oxygen. My eyes began clearing up, and I could see well again. John’s eyes took longer, but within ten minutes he, too, was seeing clearly, and we discussed the problem between us. Shortly, we came within radio range of a ground station, and we told them what had happened.

  None of us could figure out why we had been blinded. There were two possibilities that I mentioned to John. First, we were using a new kind of anti-fog chemical to wipe on the inside of our visors, and I thought it likely that the sunlight had somehow reacted with it and produced a gas that irritated the eyes. A second possibility was that some of the chemical called lithium hydroxide had gotten into our eyes. Lithium hydroxide was used to absorb the carbon dioxide in our exhaled breath. It was supposed to be sealed inside a can, but some might have leaked out and might have been blown into our suits by the oxygen fan. Of course, it might also have been something completely different, and time alone would
tell. Meanwhile, if it was either of the problems I described, then time was on our side, and things should get better. At least, we had overnight to sort these problems out, to determine whether or not a space walk was possible the next day. This next space walk was not as simple as yesterday’s hatch stand, but involved my sailing over to the old Agena while John flew in formation with it. It would certainly require all our eyes and brains to be successful. In the meantime, I had to sleep, to rest up for the next day’s activities, and this time I didn’t have any trouble. I was so tired from a poor night’s sleep yesterday that I immediately conked out, and the next thing I knew, our third day in space had begun and the people in Houston were calling us on the radio.

  Our first job, after a hasty breakfast, was to find the old Agena, the one with the experiment package on it. We had been getting closer and closer to it over the past twenty-four hours, and finally we saw it, a tiny speck some twenty-five miles in front and slightly above us. It was time to free ourselves from the other Agena, the one on our nose, so we released it and said goodbye as it slowly sailed off into the distance. As we drew closer to the old Agena, it changed from a speck to a cylinder, and I could see that it was not tumbling or spinning, but appeared to be steady as a rock. Good news, because I didn’t want to get my umbilical line tangled up with a spinning Agena! We reached it shortly before sunset, just as planned, and John turned on our searchlight. As soon as it became dark, he had the difficult job of flying next to the Agena, keeping it in the center of the pool of light. While he was doing that, I was thrashing around over in my seat, getting all the equipment together that I would need for my space walk. I hooked one end of the fifty-foot umbilical line to the Gemini’s oxygen supply and the other end to a chestpack, which in turn was hooked by two hoses to my pressure suit. I also hooked up radio lines, and I got my “gun” out and ready for use. At this time, the gun was empty. It got its supply of nitrogen gas from a tank in the rear of the spacecraft, to which I had to attach still another hose, but of course for that I had to wait until I got outside. Neither John nor I had had any trouble with our eyes since the day before, so Mission Control told us it was O.K. to go outside at dawn. As the sun burst into view, I was sitting there waiting, with a whole lapful of equipment. The fifty-foot umbilical line was all wrapped up in a ball; but even so, it was a big package, nearly as big as a basketball, and I was really crowded.

  I got the hatch open without difficulty, and popped out into the sunlight. I could see the Agena about ten feet in front of and above me, but my first job was to turn my back on it and go plug into my nitrogen supply. There were handrails to help me reach the valve, which I did easily. However, once I got there, I had a bit of trouble getting plugged in. The end of the hose from my gun had a metal collar on it which was supposed to clamp over the end of the valve coming out the side of the spacecraft. First the collar had to be cocked, and then it would snap forward and lock into place when it was pushed up against the valve. The trouble was that if the two halves were not aligned exactly, it would snap forward but would not lock, and then it would have to be recocked—a two-handed operation. The first time I tried, I didn’t have the proper alignment, and the collar snapped forward but did not lock. This meant that I had to float free of the spacecraft, letting go of the handrail as I used both hands to recock the collar. The second time it worked, and I was really glad, because I could tell John was getting worried. As I thrashed around and banged up against the side of the spacecraft, John could feel it, and so could the Gemini’s control system, which didn’t like the swaying motion and reacted by firing thrusters to hold the Gemini steady. This process wasted fuel, and we were running short of that, and we wanted to save what was left to get back down into a lower orbit after we had finished with this Agena.

  Back in the cockpit once more, this time with a loaded gun, I was ready to sail over to the Agena. However, John was keeping us so close to it (about ten feet) that I decided I didn’t even need the gun, but could just shove away from the Gemini and float over to the Agena. That may sound strange when you consider that we were roaring along at 18,000 miles an hour, but the important thing to remember is that the Agena was traveling precisely as fast; it didn’t really matter how fast we were going, provided we were both going at exactly the same speed. And John was doing that, adjusting the Gemini’s speed and position to precisely match that of the Agena. The Agena appeared motionless to me, therefore, as I stood in the open right hatch of the Gemini, peering up at the Agena’s docking collar, ten feet away at the most.

  When I was ready, I said, “I’m going to leap for her, John,” and he replied, “Take it easy, babe.” I pushed away from the Gemini gently, hoping that my right and left hand had each exerted exactly the same pressure, so that I wouldn’t twist sideways. I also held my breath until my feet cleared the cockpit. If they had snagged on something, I would have pitched head downward and gone tumbling end over end. Fortunately, nothing snagged me, and I floated out slowly in the right direction. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before I bumped gently into the end of the Agena. When I did, I noticed that part of the docking apparatus, a metal ring, had come free and was dangling loosely. I didn’t want to get snarled up in that. I grabbed the end of the Agena with both hands, but it was hard to hold on, because the end of the docking collar was tapered and slippery, and my pressurized gloves were awkward. I had landed on the opposite side of the Agena from the spot the experiment package was located, so I had to go hand-over-hand around to it. When I got there, I discovered I couldn’t stop. My legs kept going as the motion of my body pulled first my right and then my left hand free of the Agena, and I tumbled off into space!

  At first I couldn’t see a thing except the pitch-black sky as I slowly cartwheeled away from the Agena, but then the Gemini swung around into view. I found that I was about fifteen or twenty feet from it, in front of and above it, looking down at John’s window and my own open hatch. I must have been just out of John’s view, because he asked where I was. I began to explain, as I looked around. The Agena was below me on my left, and a loop of my umbilical line was awfully close to it. My motion was taking me away from the Agena and off to one side of the Gemini. I decided it was time to use my “gun,” to propel myself back to the Gemini. When I reached for it in its customary place on my hip, it was gone! I groped around until I found the hose leading to it, and discovered that the gun wasn’t really gone, it was just trailing out behind me. I reeled in the hose, grabbed the gun, and started squirting nitrogen. My flight path carried me in a great sweeping arc around and behind the Gemini. I finally got straightened out and was approaching my open hatch from the rear when John told me he was going to have to move the Gemini downward, to stay with the Agena. I told him, “Don’t go down right now. John, do not go down.” If he went down, I might sail over the top of the Gemini and miss it entirely. Also, which might be even worse, going down meant that he would have to fire some thrusters pointed upward, and I would be coming in directly over them. No one knew what would happen if their very hot exhaust gases touched my suit. The suit might even melt, and I wasn’t eager to find out. Anyway, John delayed long enough for me to reach the cockpit, banging into the open hatch and hanging on for dear life. Then he moved the Gemini back into position near the end of the Agena, and I decided to make another try for the experiment package. This time, instead of pushing off with my hands, I used my gun, pointing it up at the Agena docking collar and squeezing the trigger.

  Bill Anders (with camera). Mike Collins (with pole) and friends, looking for edible plants.

  Astronauts studying the rock formations in Meteor Crater. Arizona

  Charlie Bassett and I standing by our improvised desert home

  Gliding across the “slippery table.” controlling my progress by squirting jets of air out of the gun in my right hand

  Two views of the “Wheel.” A very unpleasant way to spend an afternoon

  A few seconds of weightlessness aboard the zero-G airplane
/>
  All suited up and ready (I hope) to fly Gemini 10

  John Young and I sitting in Gemini 10. Cramped quarters, especially with the hatches closed

  Gemini 10 departs. Shake, rattle, and roll!

  We get our first look at our Agena target vehicle

  …and closer yet

  We light the Agena’s engine, and it kicks like a mule

  I rose slowly in the cockpit. As my left boot reached the top of the instrument panel, it snagged briefly on something, and I began a slow face-down pitching motion. Just as a diver wants to hit the water head-first, not flat on his back, so did I wish not to splat into the Agena back-first, so I had some quick work to do with the gun. After a bit of squirting, I got myself pointed back in the right direction, but in the process I found I was causing myself to rise up above the end of the Agena, which was fast approaching. As it went by, I was barely able to reach my left arm down and snag it. As my body swung around the end of it, I plunged my right hand down underneath the docking collar and found some wires to hang on to. I wasn’t going to fall off an Agena ever again! Now I repeated my earlier hand-over-hand trip around the end of the Agena, heading for the experiment package. But this time I clung to wires all the way, and was able to stop my motion when I got there, rocking back and forth a few times before I got myself steadied. Again the loose piece of metal appeared to block my path, and John voiced his concern about it: “Don’t get tangled up in that thing!” Fortunately, I didn’t, and I was able to pull the experiment package free easily with one hand. Then it was time to get back to the Gemini. I decided not to use the gun, but simply to come in by pulling hand-over-hand on the umbilical. That was all right, provided I didn’t get going too fast, because I had no way to slow down, and I didn’t want to splat up against the side of the Gemini too violently. One gentle tug and I was on my way, although I didn’t move in a straight line but swung in a great circle around the side and rear of the Gemini and eventually reached the cockpit and handed the experiment package in to John. Then I made a sad discovery. I had lost my camera. It had been attached to my chestpack but had worked its way loose and was now out there somewhere in its own orbit. A couple of times during my space walk I had slowed down long enough to take a picture or two, and I knew I had some great ones, but now they were gone forever.