by Jay Barbree
Neil said, “I left one source of vomit for another,” and they all laughed possibly more at Neil making a joke than at the joke itself, and they went back to training.
The modified KC-135 was given the unflattering name of the “Vomit Comet” because vomiting was what its simulated weightlessness induced in some.
Neil could only smile. He had gone “over the top” in zooms in the F-104A Starfighter at Edwards for the same weightless-inducing maneuvers without a problem. But he was surprised to learn those flights had failed to provoke the queasiness he’d feel with the Vomit Comet’s abrupt changes in gravity.
Like most of the Gemini Nine, Neil endured four days in the Zero Gravity Indoctrination Program at Ohio’s Wright Patterson Air Force Base. He and his new colleagues were introduced to floating free; tumbling, spinning, and soaring across the cabin by pushing off walls; eating and drinking in weightlessness, and using tools effectively in space.
Later, the new astronauts attended water safety and survival training at the Naval School of Pre-Flight in Pensacola, Florida. Naval aviators Armstrong, Conrad, Lovell, and Young had been there before. What was new for all Nine was learning how to stay afloat while awaiting helicopter rescue.
* * *
Neil found the transition from research test pilot to astronaut easy and comfortable. He recognized the similarities and appreciated the differences.
“We were looking for the best method we could find to go out and do something that’s never been done,” Neil said. “Being an astronaut is different yet the skills and the engineering and the hardware are really similar.”
His astronaut brethren respected Armstrong’s abilities as a pilot, engineer, and astronaut while most admired his intelligence. What set them to wondering was Neil’s personality.
“Neil is quiet and thoughtful,” Frank Borman said, “and when he says something, you think you should listen.”
“Most of us came out of the same mold,” added Alan Shepard. “But Neil is different. He’s always trying to understand exactly what the inner workings of systems are—he wants to know what he’s flying.”
“Neil is as friendly as you can get,” said John Glenn. “He’s laid-back, a nice guy, small town just like where I came from. I don’t think either of us put on any airs, and his sense of humor cracks me up.
“It’s more British humor than mid-America,” Glenn added. “Like the time someone told him, ‘I passed by your house last night, Neil.’ And Neil said, ‘Thank you.’”
Dave Scott, who would fly with Armstrong on Gemini 8, had nothing but praise. “He’s slow in making decisions on the ground but he’s the quickest pilot I’ve ever seen in the cockpit. He’s easy to work with, very smart—really cool under pressure.”
The astronauts who would fly to the moon with Neil had something to say, too: “Neil is a very reserved individual,” said Mike Collins. “He’s more thoughtful than most, and in a world of thinkers and doers most test pilots tend to be doers. Neil is way over on the thinkers’ side.”
“Neil is certainly reserved, deep, and thoughtful,” said Buzz Aldrin, who would walk on the moon with Armstrong. “He does not utter things that could be challenged later because of their spontaneity. In other words,” Buzz laughed, “keep your mouth shut until you know what you’re talking about.”
The consensus among those who knew Neil was that he takes a long time coming to a decision on the ground and when he makes a decision that is that! But, say the astronauts, in the cockpit there’s no pilot faster. He can read a problem and immediately correct it. That’s Neil Armstrong.
Neil in the Gemini spacecraft learning the machine he would fly. (NASA)
* * *
Most believed the Gemini Nine’s credentials were more impressive than those of the Mercury Seven. Neil Armstrong had not only been an astronaut in the first Man-In-Space-Soonest group, he had flown the X-15 rocket plane; Tom Stafford, Frank Borman, and Jim McDivitt had been instructors at the Air Force test pilot school; and John Young had aced two world speed-to-climb records—all of them were the best stick and rudder pilots around.
The short of it was that Gemini Nine belonged on the same field as the Mercury Seven, and on an upcoming trip to the Cape where they were getting ready to send Gordo Cooper into orbit for a record day-and-a-half final Mercury flight, the new astronauts came up with a great plan. They decided to show their respect and share fellowship with the established hands.
* * *
Henri Landwirth was the new space coast’s beloved host.
Belgian-born, he spent much of his boyhood in one of Hitler’s concentration camps before making his way to the United States with only two shirts, a pair of trousers, and one pair of shoes, a wardrobe that held up only long enough for him to land a kitchen job in a Miami hotel.
He washed the dishes, the pots, the pans, mopped the floors, cleaned tables, made beds, and smiled pleasantly at the guests. Then he became an American citizen.
Henri did every job there was in the motel and hotel business, and as a reward he was sent to Cocoa Beach. He ran his bosses new Starlite Inn, and when he learned the astronauts were not fond of their Spartan quarters on the Cape, for the charge of only one dollar per day, he became the astronauts’ innkeeper.
Henri had a fondness, a protectiveness over those who flew through space, and he instantly recognized the need for one of his classic stunts to solidify the two groups brotherhood.
“You need to show your reverence and respect,” he told Neil Armstrong and Tom Stafford. “Show the Mercury guys you’re one of them. Bring them around to your side.”
“How do we do that?” Neil questioned.
“The best way is to invite them to an evening of getting acquainted,” he explained. “Host them for an unforgettable event. Serve them the finest wines and a cuisine befitting their station in life. Show them you are from the best families. You are cultured. You are refined. Show them your respect.”
Refined my ass, Tom Stafford spat. His mother had to borrow the bus fare to send him to fulfill his scholarship at the Naval Academy so he could later become a three-star Air Force General. He had a far more important question: “Who in the hell is going to pay for all this culture and refinement?”
“Oh, the motel will,” assured Henri. “We’ll take care of everything.”
Neil grinned quietly. He had come to know Stafford pretty well, and he knew the last time Tom picked up a Czech she was hitchhiking in Prague.
“Okay, then.” Stafford nodded in agreement with the others.
“Let me handle it, guys,” Henri told them. “It’ll be the best of everything. Best food, best imported wines, the best.”
Henri walked away smiling to set his plan in motion, and Neil looked at Tom. “I smell a dastardly deed here,” he laughed.
“Me, too,” chuckled Stafford. “Let’s go help Henri make it more dastardly.”
And they did.
* * *
Under Neil Armstrong’s and Tom Stafford’s direct supervision, Henri printed a gold-leaf menu that called for a magnificent meal of breaded veal with au gratin potatoes, salads, and imported wines.
Each invitation was delivered personally by two of Cocoa Beach’s sun-kissed beauties, who pointed out it would be black-tie (Henri rented tuxes, too).
The Mercury guys appeared the following evening dressed to the nines in their tux rentals. Showing their delight, they thanked Henri and their Gemini Nine hosts for what was promising to be a great evening of fellowship.
The imported wines lived up to their billing. They were poured, and words fell immediately to the required toasting and bestowing of best wishes and good fortune on one another.
Chief astronaut Deke Slayton heaped high praise on the Gemini Nine. Armstrong and Stafford returned the praise, making sure to show comradeship at its finest. It was the kind of togetherness that would warm any heart, and with the general high praise from each group quaffing the wine, 16 astronauts sat down to enjoy the gastronom
ical repast.
Waiters served the meal on Henri’s best silver as silence descended with a crash.
Henri had prepared a sumptuous feast of breaded fried cardboard, uncooked potatoes, and a salad rotting from hours in the humid and hot Florida sun.
Suddenly, sobering silence gave way to hearty laughter that shook the motel’s walls all the way to the swimming pool.
The Mercury Seven had been had—in the tradition of those who drive airplanes—with a classic “gotcha.” It was just the ticket needed for the Gemini Nine to be warmly welcomed into the very exclusive astronaut club.
Gemini 5’s prime and backup crews: Left to right, backup pilot Elliot See, backup commander Neil Armstrong, prime pilot Pete Conrad, and prime commander Gordon Cooper. (NASA)
SEVEN
HOME FIRE
Smoke!
Why am I dreaming about smoke?
“Neil, wake up, Neil!”
Janet!
In that pleasurable place between sleep and wakefulness he could hear her. She was calling him and he could feel her hand on his shoulder. She was shaking him.
“Wake up, Neil, wake up!”
He rolled from his bed and set his feet on the floor. The smell was suddenly undeniable.
“Smoke, Neil, it’s smoke!”
He leapt to his feet, bolted from the bedroom, but instantly recognized he couldn’t see. His eyes were burning and there was heat and thick smoke and he wiped his eyes and swiped at the swirling burning fog. He managed to see a glow from the living room and with eyes throbbing and throat burning he yelled, “Janet, call the fire department. Call…” A spasm jerked his throat and he had to cough, and cough again, and finally he yelled a second time, “Call the fire department, the house is on fire.”
Neil fought back the choking, the coughing, and quickly swirled about. First! What’s first? Mark! Get the baby! He started to move but he couldn’t breathe, he could only hold his breath—hold it he ordered himself. Hold your damn breath, and he began scrambling through the smoke and heat and the 3:45 A.M. darkness and then he was in Mark’s room. He rolled the baby in his blanket and secured him in his arms. Fighting the smoke’s burning acidity, he managed to bring Mark back to their bedroom but Janet was gone. He could hear her outside, calling their next-door neighbors Pat and Ed White.
Ed White, the West Point athlete and astronaut who in little more than a year would become the first American to walk in space, was quickly over the five-foot fence between their yards ready to help.
Neil was standing there, out of the house with his arms outreached, handing Mark to Ed. “Take the baby,” Neil told him, spinning around and quickly grabbing a towel. He wet it and disappeared into their burning home again.
“Ricky,” he yelled as he wrapped the towel around his face and dropped to all fours. The inferno was growing and he began scrambling forward through the roiling smoke and under the flames that were curling down from the ceiling.
“Ricky, where are you, son?” he called, feeling his way move by move to his eldest son’s room. If only Ricky would scream or make some noise it would be easier, he thought. Then, suddenly he feared the worse. What if Ricky couldn’t scream? What if he can’t yell? Suddenly Neil was like a terrified spider moving beneath the smoke, scrambling past the flames until he was finally by Ricky’s bed.
He was okay. Ricky was okay.
He grabbed his terrified six-year-old and wrapped the towel around his face, and beat a record-setting retreat below the flames and through the heat and smoke until they were safely outside.
Janet grabbed Ricky. Ed White was busy fighting the fire with a garden hose. He had passed Mark over the fence to his wife Pat who had gotten through to the fire department, and now the living room wall was glowing red. He could hear the cracking of window glass mixed with the sound of the roaring flames, flames that were causing wood to explode with pistol-like shots telling Neil the fire was devouring their home.
The driveway was growing hot beneath his feet and he heard sirens coming, saw the fire trucks flashing lights. Hooded men with masks ran straight for the burning house, and Neil yelled, “I got them. I got them all. There’s no one inside.”
The fire department took over with Neil and Janet and Ed and Pat following the firefighters every move as the professionals fought the flames for more than two hours. That’s when night left and it appeared the last ember had been drowned. The sun came up and everyone could see the mess.
* * *
The Armstrongs, the Whites, and the other neighbors got busy. Even some firefighters stayed to help rescue what could be salvaged, and together they moved everything into the Whites’ yard and under their carport.
* * *
Ed and Pat White took the Armstrongs in for a few days and neighbors and people Neil didn’t even know brought over toys for the boys. One had a playpen for Mark and another a crib for him to sleep in, while others stacked up diapers and things they said they didn’t need and Neil thought it was a tear he had just wiped from his cheek. The neighbors and other concerned people had brought all kinds of things the Armstrongs might need until they could move what had been worth saving into a nearby rental house.
It wasn’t lost on Neil that the fire could have been a catastrophe for his family if they had become asphyxiated before Janet woke up.
The scientist in him wouldn’t let him forget. Neil had to know what caused the fire. He had to know how to keep it from happening again.
During his urgent trips into the burning house to get Mark and Ricky, Neil had a sense the fire had started in their large living room with its high cathedral ceilings and beams.
The builder had used standard drywall-frame construction and the Armstrongs had the builder put paneling over the drywall.
Within weeks the panel began warping, curling up because of moisture, and the paneling no longer fit. Neil had the builder back, who admitted to his mistake, and his carpenters used a nail set to pound the finishing nails farther into the drywall and studs. The warped paneling simply fell off so the builder then put up sealed paneling and the Armstrongs thought their problem had been solved.
After the fire, inspectors found the cause instantly; one of the nails holding the warped paneling had been driven so deep into the wall it cut through the insulation of an electrical wire creating a trickle short. The small flow of electrical current built up the temperature in that location and when there was flammable heat, materials within the wall ignited. Unfortunately, at 3:45 in the morning.
The Armstrongs selected a different builder, a fire specialist, who built from the roof down instead of from the ground up. In the neighborhood, fire detectors were installed beginning with the Armstrongs and then neighbors Pat and Ed White, Faith and Ted Freeman, and Marilyn and Elliot See.
Within three years of the Armstrongs’ close call with their home, four astronauts from the neighborhood would be killed. Ted Freeman’s T-38 would fail him when it crashed at nearby Ellington Air Force Base October 31, 1964, and the prime crew for Gemini 9, Elliot See and Charles Bassett, were killed when their T-38 struck the roof of the building housing their spacecraft at the McDonnell plant in Saint Louis. Astronaut See was also the pilot for Neil Armstrong’s backup Gemini 5 crew, and the Armstrongs’ good friend and next-door neighbor astronaut Ed White would give his life in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire January 27, 1967.
It took the builders most of 1964 to rebuild the Armstrongs’ house. They moved in a couple of days before Christmas, but Santa didn’t bring anything resembling normalcy. Only time could bring them that.
The El Lago astronaut neighborhood began when the Whites and the Armstrongs arrived in the Houston area as members of the second group of astronauts. Ed and Neil bought three lots together in the development—one of several planned communities to house those working at the new and thriving space center.
El Lago was principally a neat, ranch house community. It had crisscrossing streets, and the Whites and Armstrongs split their three c
ontiguous lots so each would have a lot and a half.
Other members of the Gemini Nine, the Staffords, Bormans, and Youngs built homes in the El Lago subdivision, too, while the Mercury Seven’s Glenns, Carpenters, Grissoms, and Schirras lived at nearby Timber Cove.
The two neighborhoods were virtually an astronaut colony that would be strengthened by new members from the third group of astronauts selected in October 1963.
Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton now had thirty astronauts under his wing.
Eight of the fourteen new space travelers were test pilots. Five of those test pilots were from the Air Force. They were Donn F. Eisele, Charles A. Bassett, Michael Collins, Theodore C. Freeman, and David R. Scott. There were two test pilots from the Navy. They were Alan L. Bean and Richard F. Gordon, and one remaining test pilot was from the Marine Corps. He was Clifton C. Williams.
The remaining six were all pilots, but more important they came with wide-ranging backgrounds from academia. Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. had a doctorate in astronautics from MIT. His dissertation on orbital rendezvous would be essential in the flight sequences needed to reach the moon, and his dissertation would surely come in handy when he and Neil Armstrong walked on the lunar surface July 20, 1969.
Joining Buzz from the halls of learning was Air Force fighter pilot William A. Anders who held a master’s in nuclear engineering. Another newcomer, Navy aviator Eugene A. Cernan, had an engineering degree from Purdue and a master’s in electrical engineering from the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School. In fact, Cernan would be the last astronaut to walk on the moon. Former naval aviator Roger B. Chaffee also had an engineering degree from Purdue. Then there was Walter Cunningham, a former marine fighter pilot with a master’s degree in physics from UCLA, and former Air Force pilot, Russell L. Schweickart, with a master’s in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT.
