Silverstein’s insistence on the high-energy cryogenic upper stages for NASA’s eventual Saturn rockets would become the key that would unlock the door to the first moon landing. After the fall of 1959, Wernher von Braun began participating to an even greater extent in both NASA’s Project Mercury and ambitious advanced spaceflight plans. Eisenhower, recognizing that if America was going to compete with the Soviets it would need large civilian boosters, finally gave in to Glennan’s repeated requests and transferred von Braun’s Development Operations Division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency to NASA, effective July 1, 1960. On that date, Wernher von Braun became director of NASA’s new Marshall Space Flight Center (named for Ike’s wartime colleague General George C. Marshall) in Huntsville, Alabama. Eisenhower even attended the dedication ceremonies on September 1, 1960. NASA had finally acquired the Army-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the nation’s preeminent satellite laboratory, the year before.
Von Braun’s Huntsville center had an in-house industrial capacity unlike anything seen before. His policy, from Peenemunde days, was to have his team actually build their own prototypes, rather than farming out the work to industry. So Marshall was actually a booster factory, not simply an R&D laboratory. JPL had the same type of operation for the construction of prototype satellites and spacecraft systems. NASA now had the ability to begin practical work on a manned lunar landing program. All they lacked was White House approval.
Abe Silverstein again drew on his knowledge of mythology for the name of NASA’s post-Mercury manned spaceflight project. Apollo, “the name of the sun god who rode his flaming chariot across the sky, was suitably evocative for this exciting program. Administrator Glennan agreed on the name, but Project Apollo, George Low quickly admitted, had as yet no official standing.” That was probably the understatement of that year.
Eisenhower may have supported unmanned scientific and military reconnaissance satellites, but he only grudgingly approved Project Mercury and refused to back any post-Mercury plans until an ad hoc panel of science advisers assessed NASA’s future goals for cost-effectiveness. The committee concluded that a manned lunar landing would cost almost $40 billion. Ike was outraged and demanded to know why America should undertake such an expense. When a staff man compared the proposed lunar mission to Columbus’s voyage to the New World, Eisenhower noted that Queen Isabella of Spain had raided the royal treasury for that adventure, but he was “not about to hock his jewels” to put Americans on the moon. When another adviser suggested the lunar flight was actually just the first step toward manned exploration of the planets, the cabinet room rang with scornful laughter. NASA planners realized that they would have to look to the next administration for a more ambitious American space program.
The Democratic presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy criticized his opponent, President Eisenhower, saying that President Eisenhower had allowed the Soviets to challenge US global leadership, especially in space. If the “space gap” continued it would represent “the most serious defeat the US has suffered in many, many years”.
Soviet test disasters
The Soviets were building larger Korabl Sputniks, officially designated “manned spacecraft prototypes”. They were already trying to launch Mars probes and had sent one (Luna 1) into the moon in September 1959. Two Soviet efforts had failed at the fourth stage when on 24 October 1960, their third attempt failed and Marshal Nedelin, who was in charge, would not accept the delay so went forward to investigate. Aldrin:
The countdown reached zero and the ignition signal was transmitted. But the clustered booster engines failed to ignite, possibly because of an electronic fault in the massive rocket’s first stage. Korolev issued the proper “safing” commands, which disabled the booster’s main electrical systems. Under normal circumstances, the rocket would be drained of fuel, tested for malfunctions, and refueled for the next launch attempt: this could take weeks, but Marshal Nedelin could not accept this delay. He desperately needed a success, or he would face Khrushchev’s wrath. Nedelin led a team of engineers from the blockhouse to the launch pad to inspect the rocket.
Korolev wisely stayed sheltered within the thick concrete walls of the launch bunker, a safe distance from the pad.
As Khrushchev later recalled in his memoirs, “The rocket reared up and fell, throwing acid and flames all over the place . . . Dozens of soldiers, specialists, and technical personnel . . .” died in the disaster. “Nedelin was sitting nearby watching the test when the missile malfunctioned, and he was killed.”
It was not until December 1960 that a successful test of the Mercury Redstone (M-R 1) was achieved. After his election, President Kennedy delegated space affairs to his Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. M-R 2 carried a chimpanzee named Ham. It produced unexpectedly high thrust. It landed down range having pulled 15g on reentry. The next launch was delayed until April.
Aldrin was by this time at MIT. The Soviet manned spacecraft was named Vostok, which meant the East. Their chief designer, Korolev, who had designed it in 1958, favored the same design as NASA, a lightweight Titanium alloy blunt body. Soviet premier Krushchev insisted that it land on home soil, so it had to be heavy enough to survive impact but light enough for a parachute descent. The Vostok spacecraft was constructed of two parts: a re-entry module and an instrument unit. The re-entry module was spherical, heat shielded all over and was equipped with ejection seats; the instrument unit was detached before re-entry. Because the re-entry module was spherical, the re-entry angle was not as critical as it was for the US spacecraft. At 24,000 feet the hatch of the Vostok would blow and the cosmonaut would eject. On 1 December 1960 Korabl-Sputnik 3 burnt up on re-entry because the descent angle was too steep; it was carrying two dogs. In March 1961 Korab Sputniks 4 and 5 were successfully launched as practice runs for the first manned space flight attempt; the dogs inside survived. The final test was a mock-up spacecraft, carrying a Vostok ejection seat and an experienced parachutist, wearing a spacesuit. The mock-up spacecraft was dropped out of a high-flying transport aircraft but unfortunately the parachutist was killed because the hatch was too small. Korolev modified the design to ensure safe ejection, finally requesting that the cosmonaut should be small enough for safe ejection.
On 19 January 1965 a second Gemini test was launched. The spacecraft contained a dummy crew and was fired 159km above the South Atlantic. It reached a higher temperature than any mission so far and splashed down safely after a 19-minute flight. Modifications to the Titan rocket fuel distribution dampened the violent oscillations which were experienced just after launch. The next Gemini mission could be manned.
But before Gemini III could be launched the Soviets astonished the world with another achievement.
Voskhod 2: the first space walk
On 18 March 1965 Voskhod 2 was launched from Tyuratam with crew members Pavel Belyayev and Sergei Leonov. Voskhod 2 was a modified version of the Voskhod spacecraft and was fitted with an airlock. To accommodate the airlock the ejection seats had to be removed, thereby allowing the cabin to remain at normal atmospheric pressure while Leonov depressurized the airlock. Leonov reduced the pressure in the airlock to check the integrity of his spacesuit, then released the air and opened the hatch. Lindsay:
With a light push he moved away from the spacecraft and first glanced down at the Earth, which seemed to move slowly past. Despite the thick glass of his helmet, he could see clouds to the right, the Black Sea below his feet, the Bay of Novorossysk, and beyond the coastline, the mountain chain of the Caucasus.
Pulling gently on his tether, he began to draw himself back to the spacecraft, then, pushing off again and turning around he moved slowly away again. He could see both the steady brilliance of the stars scattered over a background of black velvet, and at the same time the surface of the Earth. He could make out the Volga River, the snowy line of the Ural Mountains, and the great Siberian rivers Obi and Yenisei. He felt he was looking down on a great coloured map. The sun shone brilliantly in the black sky, and
he could feel its warmth on his face through the visor.
He felt so good he had not the least desire to return back on board, and even after he was told to get back in he floated away once more.
However, when Leonov did try to return to the airlock after a few minutes he was horrified to find he could not pass through the outer hatch as his suit had ballooned out from the internal pressure.
What to do? Here he was floating along, looking down 161 kilometres to the Earth below, trapped out in space in his space-suit – and nobody around able to help! Belyayev was helpless inside the spacecraft, only able to listen to his mate grunting with the exertion of fighting for his life. As there was only one spacewalking suit there was nothing he could do.
After a few minutes struggling desperately to wriggle into the airlock, with his pulse soaring to 168, Leonov tried letting the pressure of his suit drop down, but that didn’t work. Desperate now, he tried again and brought it down to 26.2 kPa. Too sudden a drop, or more than a few minutes of high exertion at this pressure would have brought on a painful and probably fatal attack of the bends, but if he couldn’t return to the cabin he would soon be dead anyway. With his suit now more flexible, he hooked his feet on the airlock edge and with the urgent desperation of a doomed man, elbowed and fought his way back in to the safety of the airlock. Leonov was out of the cabin for 23 minutes 41 seconds, 12 minutes 9 seconds of it outside the airlock. Belyayev reported that Voskhod 2 rolled and reacted every time Leonov hit or pushed himself off the spacecraft.
On the seventeenth orbit a fault developed in the spacecraft attitude system, refusing to line the spacecraft up for reentry. Belyayev requested permission to take over manual control and they went around the Earth for another try. On the ground Korolev counted off the seconds to retrofire, which occurred over Africa. Voskhod 2 landed 3,219 kilometres away from Kazakhstan, the Ukranian target, way up among the thick forests of the frozen north near Perm in the Ural Mountains. Snow bound among the dense pine trees, with little food and heating, they spent the afternoon trying to keep warm in their spacesuits. As darkness fell upon them they lit a small fire for warmth, but Leonov spotted wolves eyeing them from the darkness, so they jumped back into the capsule, and spent the rest of the night huddled together listening to the growling and snarling of the wolf pack. Frozen stiff, they were very relieved when they peered out of the hatch the next morning to see a ski patrol sent to find them staring at the charred spacecraft, and their ordeal was over.
Gemini III: Grissom in trouble again
On 23 March 1965 the first manned flight in the Gemini program was launched, the crew being Gus Grissom, commander and John Young, pilot. Because he had nearly drowned after his splashdown in Liberty Bell 7, Grissom was allowed to name his spacecraft “Molly Brown” from a musical about a survivor of the Titanic disaster. It was the only spacecraft to be named in the Gemini program. Lindsay:
In the initial orbit over Texas, Grissom fired two 38.5 kilogram rockets for 75 seconds to slow Molly Brown down by 15 metres per second and dropped it down into a nearly circular orbit. In the second orbit Grissom fired the rockets again, and shifted the plane of their orbit. Both manoeuvres were firsts for a manned spacecraft. “This was a big event, really a big event,” Grissom said later.
Another event that seemed minor but became big with repercussions reverberating all the way up to Congress, was John Young’s corned beef sandwich from Wolfie’s delicatessen at Cocoa Beach.
Young said: “It was no big deal – I had this sandwich in my suit pocket. The horizon sensors weren’t workin’ right so I gave this sandwich to Gus so he could relax – there was nothing he could do in the dark to make that thing work, until we got back into the daylight.”
“It negated the flight’s protocol,” thundered the doctors. “The crumbs could have got into the machinery,” complained the engineers. “NASA has lost control of the astronaut group,” boomed hostile voices around the floor of Congress. Grissom later admitted that the sandwich was one of the highlights of the mission for him.
In the third orbit Grissom completed a fail-safe plan with a two-and-a-half-minute burn that dropped the spacecraft perigee to 72 kilometres to make sure of re-entry even if the retrorockets failed to work. This was added to the flight plan to protect the Gemini 3 crew against being stranded in space in case of a failure of the retrorockets, prompted by Martin Caidin’s novel Marooned.
Just before landing, Grissom threw a landing attitude switch, and Molly Brown snapped into the right angle to land, pitching both men into the window and breaking Grissom’s faceplate, before they dropped into the Atlantic, 111 kilometres from the US Intrepid. The Gemini spacecraft had produced less lift than predicted so it landed about 84 kilometres short of the target. As they landed the spacecraft was dragged along nose under water by the parachute. All Grissom could see through the window was sea water, and with his Mercury flight still fresh in his mind, he released the parachute, but this time was not going to “crack the hatch”, so the two astronauts suffered a miserable 30 minutes sealed in a “can” that was getting hotter by the minute, and being tossed around by the seas.
Young: “It was a really good test mission. Gus performed more than 12 different experiments in the three orbits – he did a really great job – I don’t think he really got enough credit for the great job he did. He proved that the vehicle would do all the things needed to stay up there for fourteen days. We changed the orbit manually, the plane of the orbit, and we used the first computer in space.”
Mission Control was moved from Cape Canaveral to Houston, Texas between the Gemini III and Gemini IV missions. The Mission Control staff was expanded from two to four teams to cover the longer Gemini missions. The new Flight Directors were Gene Kranz with his White team and Glynn Lunney with his Black team, the new teams being added to the existing Red and Blue teams.
Gemini IV: the first US space walk
The Gemini spacecraft could be depressurized so that the astronaut could then leave it by standing on the seat and just pushing off. The first Gemini extra vehicular activity (EVA) or space walk had been scheduled for Gemini VI, but the Soviet success and the readiness of the US spacesuits and equipment meant that an earlier attempt was possible. James McDivitt and Ed White were the crew. NASA was reluctant to let the astronauts take the risk but President Johnson reacted to Leonov’s space walk by saying: “If the guy can stick his head out, he can also take a walk. I want to see an American EVA.” Aldrin:
Liftoff came after a brief delay when the launch pad gantry stuck, but the ascent was flawless. Television coverage of the blast-off was broadcast to Europe via Early Bird satellite, another first for NASA (which the Soviets in their determination to be secretive could never do). There were some unpleasant longitudinal “pogo” booster oscillations, which were smoothed out, and Gemini IV was in orbit five minutes later. Unfortunately, McDivitt’s awkward attempts at an “eyeball rendezvous” with the spent second stage were an utter failure. He tried to fly the spacecraft toward the slowly tumbling Titan booster shell, and naturally, he ran into the predictable paradoxes as the target alternately seemed to speed away and then drop behind. McDivitt had never grasped much rendezvous theory during his Houston training, and after the mission, one of the Gemini engineers, Andrei Meyer, commented that McDivitt just didn’t understand or reason out the orbital mechanics involved. “I certainly knew what Andy was saying, having once hoped to interest a bunch of white-scarf astronauts in rendezvous techniques.” Unfortunately McDivitt’s abortive rendezvous wasted half their thruster propellant.
For his EVA, Ed White had to go through an extremely tiring preparation, attaching his umbilical system and the emergency oxygen chestpack in the tiny cockpit. After resting, Ed opened the hatch while the spacecraft was over the Indian Ocean. He stood in his seat and fired his handheld “zip gun” maneuvering thruster, which squirted compressed gas from the ends of a T-shaped nozzle. He drifted to the end of his tether and was able to maneuver himsel
f using the gun.
White remembered:
“There was absolutely no sensation of falling. There was very little sensation of speed, other than the same type of sensation that we had in the capsule, and I would say it would be very similar to flying over the Earth from about 20,000 feet. You can’t actually see the Earth moving underneath you. I think as I stepped out, I thought probably the biggest thing was a feeling of accomplishment of one of the goals of the Gemini IV mission. I think that was probably in my mind. I think that is as close as I can give it to you.”
White propelled himself down to the nose of the spacecraft, then back to the adapter end, but soon ran out of fuel, and reported:
“The manoeuvring unit is good. The only problem is I haven’t got enough fuel. I’ve exhausted the fuel now and I was able to manoeuvre myself down to the bottom of the spacecraft and I was right on top of the adapter. I’m looking right down, and it looks like we are coming up on the coast of California, and I’m going in slow rotation to the right. There is absolutely no disorientation association.”
McDivitt observed:
“One thing about it, when Ed gets out there and starts whipping around it sure makes the spacecraft tough to control.”
White then began to use the umbilical tether to move around. He explained:
“The tether was quite useful. I was able to go right back where I started every time, but I wasn’t able to manoeuvre to specific points with it. I also used it to pull myself down to the spacecraft, and at one time I called down and said, ‘I am walking across the top of the spacecraft,’ and that is exactly what I was doing. I took the tether to give myself a little friction on the top of the spacecraft and walked about three or four steps until the angle of the tether to the spacecraft got so much that my feet went out from under me. I also realised that our tether was mounted so that it put me exactly where I was told to stay out of.”
The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster Page 18
