The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

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.”

McDivitt remained at the controls keeping the spacecraft steady. White moved around while they both took photographs and discussed the view.

Capcom: “Take some pictures.”

McDivitt: “Get out in front where I can see you again.”

In Houston, Flight Director Christopher Kraft was becoming anxious because White had stayed out longer than the Flight Plan allowed (12 minutes). Nor was he showing any sign of returning.

McDivitt: “They want you to get back in now.”

White: “I’m not coming in – this is fun.”

Gus Grissom, the Capcom at Mission Control ordered: “Gemini IV – get back in!”

White replied happily: “But I’m just fine.”

McDivitt snapped back, “Get back in. Come on. We’ve got three and half more days to go, buddy.”

“I’m coming.” White’s boots thumped on the spacecraft as he reluctantly worked himself to the top of the capsule, handed back the camera, and again stood on the seat. Savouring the moment he stood briefly on the seat, looked at the stunning view, and sighed, “It’s the saddest moment of my life.”

Grissom queried what was happening, and McDivitt replied, “He’s standing in the seat now, and his legs are down below the instrument panel. He’s coming in.”

White’s EVA had lasted 21 minutes. Aldrin:

Ed had not only become an astronaut – his ambition since our days together in Germany – but he had also been the first American to float free in space. Like Leonov, he had a hard time jamming the legs of his bulky pressure suit into the narrow hatch, and it was even more difficult to work the hatch’s torque handle to reseal the spacecraft. But with Jim McDivitt’s help, Gemini IV was repressurized and they began the nasty task of putting away the awkward EVA equipment.

One of the photographs of Ed’s EVA shows him floating freely, the thruster gun in his right hand, the sun reflecting brightly from his visor with the distant ocean cloudscape far below. It’s eerie and futuristic. You can clearly see the American flag sewn to his left shoulder – a proud swatch of color. This flight was the first time that the shoulder patch flags were worn. There was certainly no practical reason to slap Old Glory on an astronaut’s shoulder. After all, there were no customs posts out there. But showing the flag in space – for both the Soviet Union and the United States – was now increasingly important. That picture of Ed became one of the most famous images of the space age.

Gemini IV’s attempt at a rendezvous in space had failed. The unmanned Agena target vehicle was not ready for the next mission, so Gemini V had to find the position of a phantom Agena, by flying to its calculated position in orbit. The next mission was cancelled when the target vehicle’s engine broke up. Gemini VI became Gemini VIA and the revised plan was for it to rendezvous with Gemini VII which would be on a 14-day mission. Aldrin:

On December 12, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford’s countdown reached T-0 at 9:54 am. Schirra’s mission, renamed Gemini VI-A, would rendezvous with Borman’s, which was acting as a passive target in lieu of the Agena. The huge Titan’s engines spewed flame, but shut down 1.2 seconds after ignition. Schirra showed his cool fighter pilot’s nerve by not pulling the abort ring, which would have blasted both of them in their ejection seats to safety. A small electrical plug had shaken loose in the tail of the Titan, causing premature engine shutdown. That was real discipline sitting there waiting for the launch crew to reattach the gantry while a fully fueled and armed Titan booster smoked below them.

Three days later the Gemini VI-A mission was finally launched. After six hours of maneuvering, the last three in the automatic, computer-controlled mode, Wally Schirra accomplished America’s first true orbital rendezvous. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing when he fired his thrusters on the computer’s orders. About an hour before actual rendezvous, Wally exclaimed, “My gosh, there’s a real bright star out there. That must be Sirius.” The bright object was Gemini VII.

NASA had two spacecraft and four astronauts in orbit, and the news media made the most of the mission. The press was ecstatic when Tom Stafford gleefully said he’d just seen “a satellite going from north to south, probably in a polar orbit.” Then Wally Schirra – ever the prankster – played “Jingle Bells” on his harmonica.

By 18 December, when Frank Borman and Jim Lovell splashed down in the Atlantic, America had more than quadrupled the “space hours” racked up by the Soviet Union.

In 1966 Soviet efforts were hampered by the illness and death of chief designer, Korolev, and by competition between his successor, Michin and the ICBM design bureau led by military designer General Vladimir N. Chelomei. The Soviets also needed to develop a large rocket like the Saturn V, but had not yet managed to build the more complex upper stages. The lower stages of their “Proton” project were still similar to Korolev’s original Vostok: a clustered engine with strap-on boosters.

Buzz Aldrin was one of the back-up team for Gemini X. When the primary crew of Gemini IX, Charlie Bassett and Elliott See were killed in a flying accident the new crew would be Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan. Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin became their backup crew.

Gemini VIII has to abort

On 16 March 1966 Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott in Gemini VIII achieved a successful docking. Buzz Aldrin was in Mission Control:

I was in the Mission Control room in Houston on March 16, 1966, when Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott accomplished one of Project Gemini 5 main goals, orbital rendezvous and docking with an Agena target vehicle, during the Gemini VIII flight. I didn’t know Neil Armstrong that well – he was a civilian astronaut from the second group but he was highly thought of from his days as a NASA test pilot on the X-15 rocket plane out at Edwards. For almost five hours, Arm-strong and Scott maneuvered their spacecraft to match orbits with the Agena and finally rendezvoused above the Caribbean, as Dave Scott called out radar ranges and Neil slowed the spacecraft by “eyeball” judgment.

After about an hour of floating near the Agena (“station keeping”) Mission Control told them, “Go ahead and dock.” The spacecraft’s cylindrical neck eased into the open throat of the Agena’s docking adapter. Mechanical latches sprang out to connect the two vehicles.