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  Flying in Formation

  Three months later the US flew a double Gemini mission—Gemini 6 and 7. Clearly the Gemini project was gathering momentum and confidence as the US surpassed the USSR in almost every aspect of manned spaceflight that mattered. Frank Borman flew Gemini 7 with Jim Lovell on a record 14-day mission from December 4 to December 18. According to Borman:

  Gemini 7 was looked upon among the astronaut group as, you know, not much of a pilot’s mission. Just sort of a medical experiment mission, which it was. Jim Lovell was a wonderful guy to spend 14 days with in a very small place. We had a lot of interesting things. You know, some of the doctors said: “Oh well, in order to do that you’re going to have to simulate it on Earth and see if you can stay in one G for 14 days.” And I, you know: “They’re out of their mind. Fourteen days sitting in a straight-up ejection seat on Earth? You’re crazy!”

  We’d been up there for 11 or 12 days (I don’t remember how long). And we were tired, and the systems on the spacecraft were failing. We were running out of fuel, and it was a real high point to see this bright light (it looked like a star) come up, and then eventually we could see it was a Gemini vehicle— Gemini 6. And we found that we could—we had very limited fuel—but we found that the autopilot for the controls were perfect. You could fly formation with no problem. And then Wally slapped up the sign: “Beat Army.” Wally was always one to inject some levity into the program. And, God bless him, he really did a good job in everything he did. He just has a different—he has that little quirk of being able to include some fun with things. I never had that. I didn’t think much about the “Beat Army” sign, although it was fun at the time. About the only thing that I really felt after two weeks like that were our leg muscles were shot. And it took about three or four days; and I guess you could feel it for a week or so afterwards. But it wasn’t any big deal.

  In fact Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford nearly did not get their Gemini 6 spacecraft into orbit. The plan was for Gemini 6 to launch before Borman’s flight and dock with an Agena target vehicle, but the Agena did not get into space and Gemini 6 was only itself in space from December 15 to 16. So a homing device was put on Gemini 7 for Gemini 6 to use.

  TIMELINE

  1964 April 8–12 US launches unmanned Gemini 1 spacecraft

  1965 March 23 America’s first two-person space flight begins as Gemini 3 blasts off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and John Young on board

  May 1 USSR launches Luna 5, which later lands on the Moon

  June 3 Ed White becomes the first American to “walk” in space, during the flight of Gemini 4

  August 29 Gemini 5, carrying astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad, splashes down in the Atlantic after a record eight days in space

  December 15 Two manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, maneuver to within 3 meters (10 ft.) of each other while in orbit

  “They’re in a roll and it won’t stop”

  EMERGENCY IN SPACE

  KOROLEV’S DEATH AND THE LAST GEMINI MISSIONS

  1965–1966

  The period from 1965 to 1966 encompassed the end of some important phases in space exploration. It also marked the end of an era: the death of Sergei Korolev, who had been the driving force behind the Soviet space challenge. The period also saw the end of the controversial Russian Voskhod program, as well as the completion of the more effective American Gemini missions.

  Things were not going well in the USSR. As part of their unmanned reconnaissance of the Moon their Ye-6 automated lunar probe, designed to achieve the first soft-landing on the lunar surface, had failed time and time again. In reality it was not unusual. When the Americans tried to crash land a Ranger spacecraft on the Moon, taking pictures until the moment of impact, they failed many times before they succeeded. Between January 1963 and December 1965 there had been 11 consecutive failures for the Ye-6 program, a record that had dampened the spirits of even the most optimistic Soviet engineers. Kamanin wrote in his diary: “Korolev was more distressed by the setback than anyone. He looked dejected and appeared to have aged ten years.”

  Death of a Soviet Hero

  In fact, Korolev had been declining fast throughout 1965. In August he had complained about not feeling well because of abnormally low blood pressure, and in September he was afflicted by severe headaches. He also had a progressive hearing loss and a serious heart condition. He wrote to his wife:

  I am holding myself together using all the strength at my command … I can’t continue to work like this, you understand. I’m not going to continue working like this. I’m leaving!

  He assessed what the Americans had achieved with their Gemini missions, knowing that even if the Soviets had flown their Voskhods they would have been unable to equal what the Gemini astronauts had done. In December Korolev underwent a series of medical tests in Moscow, which indicated he needed a minor operation to remove a bleeding polyp in his intestine. He spent his last day before the operation at his office, staying late before being admitted to the Kremlin hospital the following day. He had already invited people to celebrate his 59th birthday at a party on January 14.

  Dr. Boris Petrovsky, the USSR Minister of Health, removed a small polyp from Korolev’s gastrointestinal tract, causing excessive bleeding. Petrovsky was an accomplished surgeon, but it seems he was unprepared for the complications that arose during the operation. Korolev had not told them that his jaw had been broken in prison from torture in 1938, which made it difficult for him to open his mouth wide. His unusually short neck compounded the problem, preventing the use of an intubation into his lungs. Instead, the surgeons performed a tracheotomy and inserted a tube in his neck. His jaw problem necessitated the use of a general anesthetic despite his heart condition. Korolev bled profusely during the operation, and then Petrovsky found what he later described as an “immovable malignant tumor which had grown into the rectum and the pelvic wall.” The size of the tumor, larger than a person’s fist, was a shock to those in the operating room. Korolev was still bleeding profusely. Dr. Vishnevsky, a cancer specialist, was called in and the two surgeons completed the operation, four hours after it had started. But half an hour later Korolev’s heart stopped and they could not revive him.

  His death shocked those involved in the Soviet space effort, but Korolev’s arch enemy Glushko was apparently unperturbed. He was conducting a meeting when his Kremlin phone line rang. He heard the news, hung up and turned to his audience and said: “Sergei Pavlovich is no longer with us.” He paused for a second and continued: “Now where did we leave off?”

  The End of the Voskhod Program

  Mishin was clearly the most likely choice as a successor to Korolev, having been groomed by him for almost a decade. His first job was to assess the state of the Voskhod program. At the time of Korolev’s death there were plans for three to four Voskhods and five Soyuz missions in 1966. The first one, Voskhod 3, was to be a long-duration mission with cosmonauts Volynov and Shonin. The spectacular success of the 14-day Gemini 7 flight in December 1965 had given the Soviet mission even more of an impetus. The subsequent Voskhod 4 would be a scientific flight, including artificial gravity experiments with test pilot Beregovoy and scientist Katys, while Voskhod 5 would be a military mission that included cosmonaut Shatalov. As usual, Voskhod 3 was timed to coincide with the opening of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party in early March 1966. Dedicated to regaining the mission duration record claimed by Gemini 7, it was planned to be an outstanding publicity victory for the Soviet space program. It never flew. No manned Soviet flights took place in 1966, while the US flew five Gemini missions, which tested all the techniques required for the Apollo project.

  A Voskhod test spacecraft carrying two dogs was launched in February. The flight lasted nearly 22 days, but on their return the dogs were in a dreadful condition—wasting muscles, dehydration, calcium loss and problems in walking. Their motor systems did not return to normal until eight to ten days later. The United Pre
ss International Agency reported that the Soviet Union would launch a multicrewed spacecraft before the end of March 1966, in time for the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party.

  However, long-duration ground tests of the life-support system did not go well. After 14 days, the Institute for Biomedical Problems had to abandon a test because of a deterioration in the cabin atmosphere. Parachute failures during recovery tests were common and worrying. Four cosmonauts were in training for the flight: Beregovoy, Shatalov, Shonin and Volynov, but as problems accumulated it became increasingly clear that there might never be a Voskhod 3 mission. Soon it was canceled.

  Neil Armstrong’s First Flight

  There was no defining moment when Neil Armstrong decided that he wanted to become an astronaut. He had become a civilian test pilot, flying the advanced X-15 rocket plane. Apollo excited him and he applied to be an astronaut. His application papers arrived a week late, but fortunately a friend in the office put his papers in the relevant pile anyway. Deke Slayton called him in September 1962, and he became a member of the so-called “New Nine.” Dave Scott came in the following year’s selection.

  They were launched in Gemini 8 on March 16, 1966, following an Agena target vehicle into space. If Gemini 7 was a routine mission, Gemini 8 certainly was not. It was NASA’s first serious space emergency. In orbit, Armstrong maneuvered the spacecraft to make the first docking in space just a few hours after liftoff. Then the trouble began. Without warning they went into a dangerous spin.

  Armstrong: We first suspected that the Agena was the culprit. We had shut our own control system off, and we were on the dark side of the Earth, so we really didn’t have any outside reference, or very good reference. I didn’t actually notice when it started to deviate from the planned attitude. Dave first noticed it. Neither of us thought that Gemini might be the culprit, because you could easily hear the Gemini thrusters whenever they fired. They were out right in the nose, in the back. Every time one fired, it was just like a popgun, “crack, crack, crack, crack.” And we weren’t hearing anything, so we didn’t think it was our spacecraft. Dave had the control panel for the Agena. That allowed Dave to send signals to the Agena control system. He was trying everything he knew, without success.

  When the rates became quite violent, I concluded that we couldn’t continue, that we had to separate from the Agena. I was afraid we might lose consciousness, because our spin rate had gotten pretty high, and I wanted to make sure that we got away before that happened. Of course, once we separated and found out we couldn’t … regain control in a normal manner, we recognized that it was a failure in our craft, not in the Agena. The reason we didn’t hear it is, you only hear the thruster when it fires; you don’t hear it when it’s running steadily. I didn’t know that at the time, but I figured it out.

  When Armstrong and Scott undocked from the Agena “all hell really broke loose,” according to the flight director. The Gemini’s relatively slow but accelerating roll rate accelerated rapidly to the point where they were on the verge of losing consciousness. Neil Armstrong realized they had a jammed thruster. When they finally gained control they had used up so much fuel they had to perform an emergency reentry.

  A profile view of the Agena Docking Target Vehicle as seen from the Gemini 8 spacecraft during rendezvous in space.

  Hunting the “Angry Alligator”—Gemini 9

  Gemini 9 was launched on June 3, 1966. Its crew was Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan. They had intended to dock with an Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ADTA) and perform a lengthy spacewalk, but the ADTA’s protective covers had failed to come away, giving it an “Angry Alligator” look.

  As Tom Stafford was suiting-up for the flight, Deke Slayton, head of astronaut assignments, told the suit technicians to get out. He said: “I need to talk to you, Tom.” He went on: “Look, this is the first time we’ve got this long EVA, this rocket pack, and NASA management has decided that in case Cernan dies out there, you’ve got to bring him back, because we just can’t afford to have a dead astronaut floating around in space.”

  Stafford: We’d never thought about that or anything. So I thought for a minute, and I said: “Jesus Christ, Deke.” I said: “Look, to bring him back, I’ve got to have the hatch open because of that cord going out.” And he says: “Well, what do you want me to tell NASA management?” I said: “You tell them that when the bolts blow, I’m the commander and I’ll make the decision. That’s it.” “All right.” He left. Gene says: “Hey, Tom, Dick was in there talking to you quite a while. What did he say?” I said: “He said he just hoped we’d have a good flight.”

  So we got all ready to go and we launched, and it lifted off in June. I remember coming up to it, and you could see the constellation Antares. There was a full moon out. We got up close, I could see this weird thing. I came right up close to it, and it just broke out in sunrise, and here was the shroud, like that. I call it “The Angry Alligator.” Then came time for Cernan to go EVA, and they wanted him to go out and cut loose the shroud, to cut it loose. I looked at it. I could see those sharp edges. We had never practiced that. I knew that they had those 300-pound springs there, didn’t know what else. So I vetoed it right there. I said: “No way.”

  Cernan goes out, and the first thing he does is place the rearview mirror on the docking bar. He’s huffing and puffing. He’s torquing the hell out of this spacecraft, and I’m pulsing it back to be sure none of the thrusters fire on him. He goes out in front and does a few little maneuvers and he’s having a very difficult time. There was nothing for him to hold on to. Remember, the Gemini suit was a very easy suit to wear. It was lightweight, twenty-five, twenty-eight pounds, and when it was uninflated, it was limp. So he’s hanging onto the back end of the Gemini, going through this check-out procedure for the rocket pack. Then he says: “Tom, my back’s killing me. It’s burning up. It’s really killing me.” I says: “What?” He says: “My back.” I could look in the rearview mirror, and I could see the Sun. Of course, you never look directly at it. I said: “Do you want to get out of the spacecraft?” He said: “No. Keep going, but my back is killing me. It’s burning up.” So he finally, just before sunset, gets turned around into the seat. We had two lights back there. One of them burned out for some reason, during the vibration of the launch anyway. We had one light. And then a couple of minutes after sunset, he was strapping himself in. I was down to a couple of steps. You know, at sunrise I would cut him loose. He fogged over. Whop! He could not see. It was just like that, fog. So we did defog on the visor, and he had overpowered that little water evaporator so much, it was unbelievable.

  And then we started to lose one way of two-way com. It was real scratchy. So he could hear me. So I worked out a binary system. I said: “Look, if you can hear me, make a noise for a yes. For a no, make two noises.” So I’d hear a “squawk,” and for “no,” I’d hear a “squawk, squawk.” So I said: “Can you see?” I’d hear a “squawk, squawk.”

  I think we went south of Hawaii, then, before we hit the West Coast of the US. We went a long time. It was night time. We saw the Southern Cross go by. What a hell of a lonely place this is. Here you’re 165 miles up, you know, flying, pressurized. Your buddy’s 25 feet back there. He can’t see, and we’d lost one way of two-way com. There’s not a thing you can do until you get daylight. So it came up daylight. He could see it was daylight. I said: “Okay, Gene. If this doesn’t burn off fast, we’re going to call it quits and get out of there.” So after five or ten minutes, nothing happened. So I said: “Okay. Call it quits, Gene. Get out of there.” He couldn’t see. He was absolutely blind and 145 feet away.

  We hit the West Coast. I said: “Look, I’ve called it off. He’s fogged over, he can’t see. We’ve semilost one way of two-way com. I’m not going to fly the rocket pack.” My main thing is to get him in before the next sunset. So we got all squared away, and he got in, and we worked out this maneuver. Still, he couldn’t see hardly a thing. So he got down. I helped guide him down. He knew how to feel on this t
hing. So he came in closer, and I just reached over and grabbed this over-the-center mechanism and slammed it. Then as the pressure came up, our suits decreased. So finally he got back in his seat, raised his visor, and his face was pink, like he’d been in a sauna. He says: “Help me get off my gloves, too.” So I helped him get his gloves off, and his hands were absolutely pink. So I took the water gun and just hosed him down. You shouldn’t squirt water around in a spacecraft. Turns out he lost about ten and a half pounds in two hours and ten minutes outside. That was the third day. We landed the next day. By the way, the ride on the carrier, I want to tell you about that. We got the suit back to Houston, and the next morning they still poured a pound and a half of water out of each boot. Finally, after we did splash down, after the final thing, we’re back in the crew quarters having a drink, I told him what Deke said.

  The ADTA target vehicle for Gemini 9, with its protective covers still attached, giving it an “Angry Alligator” look.

  The Last Gemini Missions

  The next mission, Gemini 10, launched on July 18 with its crew of John Young and Michael Collins, also had its problems. They also could not see during the spacewalk toward the Agena.

  Collins: The method that we used on Gemini 10 to purge the system, to absorb the exhaled carbon dioxide from your body, were canisters of lithium hydroxide. The stale air went through the lithium hydroxide and it came out purified. Lithium hydroxide is a granular sort of material, and our best guess was that somehow lithium hydroxide had escaped from some canister and had gotten into the nooks and crannies of the system in the pipes and that there was some triggering mechanism having to do with depressurizing the spacecraft that caused that lithium hydroxide to start billowing up. It went through, and it can be an irritant, and that’s what it was. But to the best of my knowledge, they never established that beyond the shadow of a doubt. All I know is that I couldn’t see and John couldn’t either, and it was frightening for a moment, because the hatch on Gemini was not a very straightforward thing. In other words, you just didn’t go “clunk, latch.” You had to look up, and there were little levers and whichnots that had to be fiddled with, and then you had to make sure that all your hoses and stuff were not going to get in the way, and then you had to come down in a certain way and you had to get your body underneath, your knees underneath the instrument panel and kind of ratchet your body down, and it was a tight fit. So it was the kind of stuff that, with practice, you found it became easy to do, but… it wasn’t something you ever had trained to do or thought you would have to be doing by feel alone.