The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

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 himself 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.”