Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight

by Jay Barbree

  The two astronauts were pleased to have Jim Lovell as CapCom. He, along with Frank Borman, had flown the last Gemini three months ago—logged two weeks aboard Gemini 7, and Lovell certainly had solid knowledge of the ship they were flying.

  Station-keeping with a perfect Agena shining in the glow of the Pacific. (NASA)

  They flew away from Hawaii again, but this time they had a wingman. They would fly in formation with the Agena across the Pacific and South America and on the other side of the continent they would find their next contact with Earth, the tracking ship Rose Knot Victor.

  NASA commentator Paul Haney told the public and the media, “The flight plan from here calls for the actual docking to take place over the Rose Knot Victor parked down off the coast of South America. The Rose Knot Victor is to acquire the spacecraft at 6 hours 32 minutes into the flight. We presently show 6 hours 8 minutes into the flight.”

  Twenty minutes. That’s what he had and Neil told himself to review learned procedures, to review all he had been told by Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford who, only three months earlier, had flown the first rendezvous, making up much of it as they flew Gemini 6 right up to Gemini 7—putting on the brakes, station-keeping, doing fly-arounds, circling each other in a series of figure eights, and closing to within six to eight inches before backing off and flying in again. Now it was Dave Scott and Neil Armstrong’s assignment to finish the job.

  Were they ready? You betcha!

  Neil and Dave began inching toward their target. Gemini 8 had already moved to within 80 feet of the Agena and as they sped across the Pacific, Neil Armstrong fired his rocket thrusters as Dave Scott chanted distances and elevations. Neil’s firing of the thrusters closed the distance between his spacecraft and the passive Agena an inch at a time. Closer and closer they came to the huge docking adapter on the back end of their target rocket, lining up perfectly with the funnel-shaped adapter. When they were within 2 feet, Neil put on the brakes. He matched Gemini 8’s speed and position precisely with the Agena’s. They were in every sense one. They just hadn’t docked.

  Gemini 8’s astronauts were peering down their spacecraft’s nose into the docking ring. The sensors and latches that would secure their docking waited. Then they heard, “Gemini 8 this is Rose Knot Victor.”

  “… about two feet out,” Neil told the tracking ship quietly.

  “Roger, stand by for a couple of minutes here.”

  “Is he docked?” Mission Control asked.

  “Negative, he’s not docked yet,” Rose Knot Victor told Houston, and then the tracking ship monitored and studied all the Gemini and Agena systems.

  “Okay Gemini 8, it looks good here from the ground. We’re showing column rigid, everything looks good for docking.”

  “Roger.”

  Neil Armstrong slowly nudged Gemini 8’s nose into Agena’s adapter. Sensors recognized the spacecraft. The crew heard and felt electric motors grinding. The latches clicked home. Gemini 8 and the Agena were one.

  “Flight,” Neil spoke directly to Flight Director John Hodge. “We are docked! It was really a smoothie.”

  In Houston Mission Control pandemonium broke loose: backslaps, handshakes, cheering, whistling, shouting, applause, and tremendous grins as cigars were given out by Deke Slayton. The control center flashed the news across NASA’s tracking network, and throughout most of the world. American space flyers had achieved the first docking between two spacecraft.

  Gemini 8 aligned and ready for docking. (NASA)

  “You couldn’t have the thrill down there we have up here,” Dave Scott told them, adding, “Just for your information, the Agena was very stable, and at the present we are having no noticeable oscillations at all.”

  NASA commentator Paul Haney was back:

  This is Gemini Control Houston here at 6 hours, 44 minutes into the flight. According to the best estimates that we have the actual docking took place at 6 hours, 34 minutes into the flight. We can verify this later through telemetry but that is the estimate of the flight director. The pilots still have about two hours work ahead of them before they will power down for the night and suspend their activities after this most busy and successful day. This is Gemini Control, Houston.

  Neil Armstrong performs the first docking in space. (NASA)

  Back on Gemini 8 the crew and the docked ships moved out of radio contact with Mission Control. Ahead was one of the worldwide tracking network’s dead zones. No transmissions in. No transmissions out.

  For the next twenty-one minutes Gemini 8 and its Agena partner, forming a single, lengthy spacecraft of 44 feet, moved across the waters of the Indian Ocean and over the Bay of Bengal where something went wrong.

  There was no way of telling anyone. It was Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott’s problem.

  Suddenly, survival was job one.

  Mission Control Houston ready for the quiet, graveyard shift. (NASA)

  ELEVEN

  GEMINI 8: THE EMERGENCY

  It was quiet on NASA’s worldwide space-tracking network. Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott, with the successful first-ever docking of two spacecraft in their pockets, were winding down their day when Bill Anders walked into Mission Control. It was Anders’s first real assignment as an astronaut—relieving his veteran colleague Jim Lovell.

  Anders had come aboard in NASA’s third group of astronauts. He had strategized by lobbying for CapCom; the experience would put him a step closer to a crew assignment. He hadn’t the slightest clue he would, in less than three years, join Jim Lovell and Frank Borman as one of three humans to first orbit the moon.

  At the present, Gemini 8 was out of radio contact somewhere over the other side of the world, and Lovell, the flight’s first-shift CapCom, told the rookie, “You should have an easy shift. The crew is getting ready to call it a night.”

  Anders smiled as the tired veteran astronaut turned and walked away, leaving him to his debut as a space-crew babysitter.

  He now stood alone before the CapCom console surveying the rows of flight controllers, each with a monitor, rising behind and above the others, each tier keeping a continuous watch on the crew and spacecraft. This efficient Mission Control operation was orchestrated by the flight director, the boss, on the CapCom’s right.

  The freshman astronaut acknowledged Flight Director John Hodge with a glance and a smile. Hodge was also new. He was completing his first shift and his return smile seemed to say to Anders that he, too, would make it.

  Hodge was about to be relieved by the more-experienced Gene Kranz, who in little more than three years would be the flight director in charge of Neil and Buzz Aldrin’s first landing on the moon. Kranz had dropped by to listen to the docking, and since Hodge had been at the flight director’s console for eleven hours, the two decided between themselves Kranz’s second shift of flight controllers should report for duty immediately.

  Rookie Bill Anders and the second shift settled into their Mission Control seats. Many from the first team hung around to make sure no one had a problem moving into the flow.

  * * *

  Over China, the docked Gemini 8/Agena combination flew alone deep into the night. They had no ground stations to talk to and Neil readied the spacecraft for their first sleep period. Dave continued maneuvering the Agena with its attitude-control rockets. He turned the docked ships 90 degrees to the right. This yaw maneuver was one of several that had been scheduled to determine if Agena’s control system could relieve Gemini 8 of some of its control duties. If it could it would save fuel. But this 90-degree turn took 5 seconds less than the full minute expected. This shorter maneuver prompted Dave to check his cockpit’s instruments. Something was wrong. Something was out of place. The Gemini/Agena’s stability was fraying noticeably. “Neil, we’re in a bank,” he said. “I have a 30-degree roll on my 8-ball.”

  The 8-ball instrument on a pilot’s cockpit panel is an instrument of crosshairs showing a flyer an artificial horizon and the spacecraft’s degree of tilt to the left or right “bank.�
�� It gets its name from the eight ball in the game of pool. It is held in place by a fast-spinning gyro, a device that holds an object fixed in place, and if the gyro fails, the 8-ball will tumble—no longer giving a pilot an artificial horizon and an indication of the spacecraft’s bank. Armstrong quickly thought Scott’s 8-ball had tumbled, but when he checked his own they were identical. His 8-ball showed them rolling and he made some efforts to reduce the bank angle by triggering short bursts on the Gemini’s maneuvering thrusters.

  At first it seemed Neil was successful. Both pilots were convinced their target rocket was the culprit because they could easily hear the Gemini thrusters when they fired. They were on the Gemini’s nose and behind them and every time they would fire Neil would later say, “It was like a popgun—crack, crack, crack—and we weren’t hearing anything, not realizing until later that the thrusters only popped when they ignited. As long as they were burning they were silent.”

  What Neil and Dave hadn’t known was that if a thruster was burning continuously, they wouldn’t be able to hear it. So they waited for four minutes. There was “no joy.”

  The roll began again, only faster, and Neil asked Dave to shut off all of Agena’s controls.

  Dave had the control panel for Agena on his side but he had little success. He sent command after command, jiggled switches, recycled them and the roll kept increasing and Neil became concerned that the stress and strain of the violent rolling might break apart the linked spacecraft, possibly igniting the Agena’s 4,000 pounds of fuel. That’s just what he needed: a fireball above China. Mao Tse-tung, the chairman of China’s communist party, would go berserk. Neil would have to use Gemini 8’s maneuvering thrusters to undock, to back away from the Agena, but that could rip the whole damn thing apart and shower their orbit with little pieces and … And God could let the Sun fall from the sky! Instantly it was clear. He had one choice. If Agena’s fuel didn’t blow, they would soon pass out from the centrifugal force of the increasing spin and if they were going to die anyway, he reasoned, screw it. Let’s take our best shot.

  “We’re going to disengage,” Neil told Dave who immediately agreed, and suddenly Neil’s hands were magic. He was firing bursts from the Gemini’s maneuvering thrusters and he fought and fought until Scott was convinced Neil had steadied the linked spacecraft enough to undock and Dave yelled, “Go,” and he hit the undocking button as Neil gave the thrusters a long hard burst.

  “Come on,” Armstrong shouted, and there immediately came a bang from the motors driving the docking latches open and the docked ships freed themselves with Gemini 8 pulling straight back. It was like two people facing one another and each using their hands to push the other away. For every action there’s an opposite reaction, Neil knew, which dampened his concern over the distance between them and the Agena. With no resistance in space, Gemini 8 and its target rocket should continue moving apart in their separate orbits and …

  Neil fires his thrusters to disengage from Agena. (NASA)

  What’s this? Gemini 8 was beginning to spin faster. Instantly the astronauts realized the problem was not in the Agena, it was in Gemini 8. It was now increasing its spin, making them even more dizzy, and Neil Armstrong’s analytical mind stepped up to the plate. Despite the growing chaos, he was quick to realize his spacecraft’s spinning was a disaster in the making. Gemini 8 was an out-of-control dilemma that would keep growing until the centrifugal forces ripped everything apart and he and Dave would not only lose their focus, they would lose their vision and their consciousness.

  To stabilize his spacecraft Gemini 8’s commander recognized he needed an independent control system. One stronger than his attitude-control thrusters, and that could only be Gemini 8’s RCS (Reentry Control System).

  The RCS had two individual rings of hypergolic rockets. They were more powerful than the ship’s troublesome attitude-control thrusters, but they were a separate part of the spacecraft for one reason. A fresh, independent control system was a must to position Gemini 8 correctly for its return to Earth. Without it, Neil and Dave would simply not get home. They would burn up during an out-of-control reentry.

  The book says that once you activate your two RCS rings, A and B, you must then land at the first opportunity.

  But Neil also knew they had only one real hope. Use Gemini 8’s primary reentry control rockets.

  He was thinking again that he and Dave were going to die anyway so what the hell, with their chances being slim to none, he’d take slim every time.

  Both astronauts wavered on the edge of losing consciousness and when they first tried to fire their reentry thrusters nothing happened. After turning the system off, then trying again, the thrusters responded, and Neil was busy trying to stabilize Gemini 8 when they came in contact with the tracking ship Coastal Sentry Quebec.

  James Fucci, the CapCom aboard, was fussing because he couldn’t get a solid signal, unaware that the spacecraft was rolling.

  “Gemini 8, CSQ CapCom,” Fucci called. “Com check. How do you read?”

  “We have serious problems here,” Dave told him. “We’re spinning and we’re disengaged from the Agena.”

  “Okay, we’ve got a ‘Spacecraft Free’ indication here,” Fucci told the crew. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “We’re rolling,” Armstrong told him.

  Houston Mission Control was listening and suddenly the room was fully awake and alert.

  Rookie CapCom Bill Anders managed one word, “Roger.”

  “Gemini 8, CSQ.”

  “Stand by,” Neil told the tracking ship.

  “Roger.”

  Those listening on the worldwide network were not aware of just how dangerous the situation was aboard Gemini 8, and they stood by while Neil fought to save his spacecraft, firing his reentry thrusters, doing everything he could to regain control with Dave quickly responding to everything he asked.

  They fought and the ground stood by and after 37 seconds of silence, Dave told them, “Okay, we’re regaining control of the spacecraft slowly, in RCS direct.” “Roger, Copy,” Bill Anders acknowledged, and thumbs went up in Mission Control.

  “We’re pulsing the RCS pretty slowly here so we don’t control roll right,” Neil told the ground. “We’re trying to kill our roll rate.”

  “Okay, fine,” Anders acknowledged. “Keep at it.”

  “8, CSQ,” James Fucci called from the Coastal Sentry Quebec. “How much RCS have you used and are you just on one ring?”

  “That’s right,” Neil quickly confirmed, knowing what the tracking ship was getting at. “We are on one ring, trying to save the other ring for reentry.”

  CapCom Bill Anders caught a hint of a “can do” in Neil’s voice, and he told the astronaut, “Everything’s okay.”

  And it was.

  Once the firing of the reentry thrusters had stabilized Gemini 8, Neil and Dave began firing and rechecking their thrusters one at a time. When they hit the switch for number eight, their spacecraft began to roll again. They had found the culprit.

  * * *

  Gemini 8’s emergency had all the lights on at Houston’s Manned Spacecraft Center with the lights in Mission Control burning the brightest. Every single person there was hanging onto every single word from the Gemini control commentator:

  We are 8 hours and 3 minutes into the flight of Gemini 8. And in view of the trouble encountered at 7 hours into the flight as reported earlier, the flight director has determined to terminate the flight in the 7-3 area. We plan to bring the flight down on the 7th orbit in the 3rd, what we call the 3rd zone, which is approximately 500 miles east of Okinawa, it’s in the far west Pacific. Our situation out there is as follows—a destroyer named the Mason is about 160 miles away at this time, it is proceeding towards the point, which should come very close to the … well it may be a little delayed, get there after the landing itself. The first estimate I have on the retrofire time is ten hours and four minutes into the mission, in other words two hours from now. Landing should t
ake place some 25 to 26 minutes later.

  In addition to the Mason, a C-54 has been dispatched from Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan; it’s proceeding to the point. Another C-54 is proceeding to the point from Okinawa. Another location here on the landing point is quoted to me as 630 nautical miles south of Yokosuka, Japan. The weather conditions out there are partly cloudy, visibility 10 miles, and the landing will be made in full daylight. It’s 12:30 P.M. out in the 7-3 area.

  This is Gemini Control at 8 hours, 6 minutes into the flight.

  * * *

  Riding backward with only a disappearing band of blue on the horizon, Neil and Dave were ready to begin their emergency reentry in total darkness.

  High over the Arabian Sea Neil Armstrong hit Gemini 8’s brakes. He fired their four retro-rockets beginning a never-before-flown reentry through the dark night over India, Burma, and then into sunrise over China and the East China Sea. All the way through reentry, they could not expect contact with any tracking station or ship if needed. The two astronauts were it. They only had themselves.

  During the mission following his emergency return from orbit, Neil Armstrong listens intently in Mission Control to the troubles his friend Gene Cernan was having trying to maneuver in Gemini 9’s EVA without support devices. (NASA)

  * * *

  In Neil’s home Janet Armstrong stared at her NASA squawk box. The speaker relayed the astronauts’ transmissions along with the mission commentator’s explanations. By her side was world-renowned Life magazine photographer Ralph Morse. Life magazine had a contract with the astronauts to tell their story—a clever way for the space flyers to raise their pay above the military grade, and their growing families were thankful.