The Unbroken Chain

Chapter 5 - Problems with pairs...

“How is it that you get along so well with Gunther?” Armstrong asked Pete Conrad.

Neil Armstrong was the reserved, studious type. Perfectly polite, but just not the most outgoing person you would ever meet.

Pete grinned back exposing the large gap between his two front teeth.

“Aw, hell, that’s easy, Neil,” he snickered. “You just do whatever he says.”

I was quick to see what kind of person Armstrong was. He took his time, went over all the data, then provided an answer that an expert would have been proud of. He wasn’t easy to just chat with. He would rather discuss Fugoid oscillations in an X-15 than baseball scores. But if he did tell you something, you could pretty well assume it to be correct. And he wasn’t used to being told what to do.

The Mercury guys had come up through the ranks at the pad with me. It had all been new, and in many cases, untested, technology. They recognized the dangerous environment we worked in and accepted my rules for the obvious reasons. When the Next Nine joined us, the danger had not diminished, but at least we knew what it was. Much of the mystery was gone and the junior birdmen sometimes wondered what this German engineer in the white jacket was doing telling them what to do. Even Pete Conrad, who would later become one of ni) dearest friends, could get exasperated with me.

“You’re nothing but a damned dictator!” he barked back at me one time. Yes I was. I ran a tight ship and was proud of it. Sooner or later, they all came around.

Cooper’s MA-9 flight in 1963 ended the Mercury program. All the goals had been met and it was time to move on to the next level. Although North American Aviation had beaten us out of the Apollo spacecraft contract, McDonnell remained the prime contractor for Gemini. We knew we might be gone by the time Apollo flew, but Project Gemini was ambitious and had a relatively large number of flights planned. It was going to be an extensive, exciting program.

We kept our offices in Hangar S, but a new building, Hangar AF, was built close by. We were rapidly spreading out. A substantial lull in the program seemed evident to the public, but we stayed extremely busy for the ensuing twenty two months trying to prepare for our next manned flight.

The Gemini program was so much more complicated than Mercury. The spacecraft itself was built for two men. Unlike the Mercury capsule which could be aimed and rolled by the astronaut, but not actually moved, Gemini could be flown from point A to point B. This was accomplished with the OAMS (pronounced like “ohms”) - the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System. It contained eight small attitude thrusters and eight larger translational thrusters. The OAMS thruster package was so sophisticated that it could be used to fly the spacecraft into different orbits. This was a significant advancement. It meant that the astronaut was unquestionably no longer just a passenger. He was a pilot who would fly his craft in space and develop the rendezvous and docking procedures that would later be required for trips to the moon.

Maneuvering in orbit to effect rendezvous was really a counter-intuitive process. In a way, you could say that to go faster you went slower, and to go slower you went faster. If you added thrust to an orbiting spacecraft, instead of picking up speed, it just went into a slightly higher and longer orbit. That meant it would take longer to complete a revolution around the earth - the equivalent of slowing down. If you braked the spacecraft, it would fall into a lower and shorter orbit. Instead of slowing down, it would actually complete its orbit more quickly.

Imagine, then, that a trailing spacecraft wanted to rendezvous with a spacecraft out in front. If it added thrust in an attempt to catch up, it would simply rise to a higher orbit and fall back even further. Instead, the astronauts would brake the spacecraft, that is add some reverse thrust, to drop them into a lower orbit. Then as they overtook the spacecraft in front of them (who would still be in the higher, original orbit), they would add power to rise back up in the proximity of their target.

The Gemini spacecraft also differed from Mercury due to its offset center of gravity. A Mercury capsule plowed into the atmosphere with its heatshield exactly perpendicular to the line of travel. The astronaut had very little control. Not so with Gemini. Here, the spacecraft had an offset center of gravity so that a small amount of lift was actually generated on the side of the ship closest to the astronauts’ feet. That meant that by rotating the spacecraft with the hand controllers during reentry, the piloting astronaut could actually steer the craft toward the designated splashdown point.

Gemini would also represent our first attempt at the use of fuel cells.

Long term missions were hampered by reliance on batteries. They were heavy, and prohibitively so on long flights. Fuel cells simply produced more electricity for less weight. In a nutshell, fuel cells ran liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen through a membrane to extract electrons. The result was electricity with a byproduct of water. The successful development of fuel cells would be a key requirement for the future spaceflights that were planned.

Two other new links in our chain appeared in the Gemini program - hypergolic fuels and ejection seats. You will need to have a basic under-standing of the booster to grasp the significance of these systems.

The Titan booster was originally developed for the Air Force as a long-range ballistic missile. It could carry a much heavier load than the Atlas. The Gemini spacecraft with its white-skirted adapter section weighed considerably more than a Mercury capsule. The muscle of the Titan was needed to boost this load up into orbit.

Unlike the liquid oxygen and kerosene fuels that were ignited in the motors of the Redstone and Atlas rockets, exotic hypergolic chemicals fueled the Titan. Specifically, the combustant was a hybrid blend of hydrazine, and nitrogen tetroxide was the oxidizer. When mixed, they spontaneously combusted. The result was a very simple engine, but an extremely hazardous situation. A fuel leal could be disastrous. Completely new sets of procedures had to be established for work around the vehicle. There was obviously no room for any mistakes.

The Gemini spacecraft would not have the escape tower on its nose that was seen mounted atop the old Mercury capsules. In case of an emergency on the pad or at low altitudes, either crewman could pull a square handle between his knees. This would blow the hatches open and small rockets would eject the two seats and the occupants free of the cockpit. Once clear of the spacecraft, a deployment sequence would begin. First, man and seat would separate in free-fall, courtesy of built-in pyrotechnics. Next a round “ballute”, similar to a drogue chute, would deploy to stabilize the falling astronaut. Based on the altitude, the ballute would then be released prior to the deployment of the parachute. Nothing left but a lazy ride back to Earth, at least in theory. I know most of the astronauts cringed at the prospect of having to egress the spacecraft in this precarious fashion.

Gemini-Titan launches would all be conducted from Launch Complex 19. This was slightly further north along the Cape’s coastline. The complex itself was a large, flat, grassy field, roughly a quarter mile square. Its perimeter was bordered by a narrow paved road which encircled a chain link fence. The ground had been built up to form a wedge-like ramp up to the pad itself and a reinforced concrete roadway marked the ridge.

Hangar “S” as it is in 2001. The preparations for early Mercury flights took place inside. Today it still is in use as part of the Cape Canaveral U.S. Air Force facility.

An aerial view of Cocoa Beach, just south of Cape Canaveral, during the early heydays of the Manned Space Program. Today the strip is built up with large condominium and hotel complexes.

Guenter holds the United States first space exploring primate, the young chimpanzee “Ham.’

“Ham” is transported by Aeromed personnel to his Mercury capsule.

The infamous failed launch of Mercury-Redstone 1, 21st November 1960. The launch escape tower fired during a surprise automatic abort. A heated debate followed to determine what was the best method to depressurize the rocket before the Mercury’s thrusters fired.

Guenter and astronaut Alan B. Shepard confer inside the preparation room at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 5 launch site. Shepard would go on to become the second human to fly in space following Yuri Gagarin by only two weeks.

Guenter peers into the ill-fated Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule. Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom would fly a perfect sub-orbital flight only to be betrayed by a faulty hatch on splashdown. The capsule would spend the next 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Guenter persuades astronaut John Glenn to cheer up after a particularly long session inside the cramped Mercury capsule on Pad 14.

America’s first three astronauts, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, John Glenn and Alan Shepard. (1 to r)

Astronaut Scott Carpenter is prepared for his flight aboard the Mercury capsule and the second U.S. orbital flight. Guenter and his team conduct final checks before Carpenter boarded his Aurora 7.

After the historic flight of John Glenn aboard Friendship 7 Guenter presented the earth-path indicator in a rosewood case as a gift to Glenn. The gift remained on Glenn’s desk years later at his Senate office.

Astronaut Gordon Cooper is assisted by Guenter and his close-out crew. Cooper would fly his Faith 1 Mercury capsule for 22 complete orbits of the Earth.

Two tall, primary structures stood at the end of the pad, surrounding the rocket. One was the umbilical tower. This orange, steel monstrosity bristled with hoses and long arms. It connected the spacecraft and booster to the dozens of fuel lines, electrical cables, and communications hookups that kept the vehicle alive on the ground.

On the opposite side was another orange tower. This one, the gantry, stood slightly taller. We called it the erector. It was here that our white room was located. In the Mercury program, the gantry was rolled away from the rocket just before launch, leaving only a tall umbilical mast in place. Before Titan launches, the erector would be pivoted down to a horizontal position, leaving the massive umbilical tower standing beside the vehicle. Seeing that gigantic steel rig rotated down through ninety degrees was quite an impressive sight. But the really amazing thing was that this steel structure, loaded with a Titan booster, was raised and lowered with just a 150 horsepower electric winch system!

The Complex 19 blockhouse squatted six hundred feet west of the launch pad. In that distance, over eight hundred miles of cable tied the two together. The blockhouse looked like a huge, concrete, windowless dome. At its base, the walls were forty feet thick. Engineers claimed it could withstand a direct hit from a rocket and I guess it probably could. I would not want to be inside if that was ever tested, though.

While the spacecraft’s ejection seats took care of emergency egress for the crew once the erector was lowered, we were still concerned with emergencies that might occur at other times. A fire at the base of the booster or a major fuel spill would require immediate evacuation. In addition to the two people in the spacecraft, the four-level white room might be occupied by as many as fifty people. The elevator remained a slow and unreliable means of escape, so we had to come up with another idea. The concept of a “slide wire” quickly came to mind and I joined up with NASA complex engineer, Bud Blevins, and a particularly gifted Air Force “scrounger”, MSgt. Barton, to design the system. We figured that a couple of cables attached to the umbilical tower and sloping several hundred feet away to the ground below would do the job.

I began by running some numbers based on attach points and wire size while Bud contacted oil drilling companies seeking suggestions. As we started to develop the system we immediately needed wire samples, fittings, and all types of hardware. Now Sergeant Barton had a talent that would put Sergeant Bilko of the old TV series to shame. He could scrounge up anything. He had a reputation for finding things before they were even lost. All we had to do was to mention that we wished we had some piece of hardware about this big and shaped liked so. By the end of the day, Sergeant Barton would proudly present us with something that looked darn close to what we had in mind. He rarely volunteered where it came from and we usually chose not to ask.

After getting the basic configuration in place, we became concerned that overweight people might not stop at the calculated point at the bottom. Bud joked that we should put a trampoline up at the end of the wire to put the final stop to any fast movers. The next day, Sergeant Barton was seen backing a pickup truck into position, off the side of the pad. In it was a shiny black trampoline.

We did a number of tests to insure that the wire would hold, and that it would transfer the load to the drop off point at the bottom. It seemed to function as planned so we set to work to create a harness system. We crafted some flat nylon webbing into a modified lumberjack’s harness with a steel connector link in the front middle. Once the rocket was fueled, everyone in the white room would wear the contraption underneath his coveralls. The idea was pretty simple. The technician would walk out onto the small platform, hook one of the slides attached to the slide wire onto the connector link of his harness, grab the little handle at the top and jump. Our first test conducted for the Pad Safety Officer was a disaster.

Pan American was contracted to run the test. For it, they provided some two hundred pound weights to simulate human passengers. The weights would be harnessed up and then shoved over the edge for a speedy ride down the wire. Cameras were set up at the top and bottom so that the performance could be evaluated in detail. The area below the wire was cleared and the Pan American supervisor radioed up to his people to shove the weights over the edge. They did. The weights dropped straight down and smashed into the spacecraft thruster service trailer. Someone had failed to attach the harnesses to the slides.

After a few ensuing successful tests with the weights, I volunteered to man-rate the system. Many spectators showed up for the event and bets were placed as to whether or not I would smack into the trampoline. There was a lot of joking in the white room as I double checked my harness and cautiously walked out onto the tiny platform. It was a hell of a long way down there! Very carefully, I attached the slide to my harness and gripped the handle. I felt like a paratrooper getting ready to make his first jump into enemy territory. With a final squeeze of the handle I stepped off into space. Immediately I seemed to plunge straight down, a sensation caused by the arcing slope of the wire. As my velocity changed from vertical to horizontal I could feel the wind blowing briskly in my face. Man, I was really moving! What a ride.

In a few seconds, I was approaching the ground. I could see the trampoline ahead like a large, black bulls-eye. The arc in the wire started to flatten out and my slide slowed to a stop right at the calculated point. My heart was pounding as anonymous hands helped me to disengage. It had been terrific, better than any carnival ride you could imagine.

A few days later, Shepard and Grissom arrived in the white room accompanied by a Pad Safety Officer to inspect the slide wire system. As they put on harnesses, the PSO informed them that it had not been approved by the Air Force.

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Shepard said. “We’re just going to take a look over the edge.”

In moments, he and Grissom both were zipping down the wire. They got small real fast. The PSO was furious, yelling at them that they couldn’t do that. I seized the opportunity and hooked up my own harness to the wire.

“I will tell them for you,” was all I got out before I, too, was shooting down the wire in pursuit of the mischievous astronauts.

The slide wire quickly became a popular attraction for thrill seekers, especially on second shift. It wasn’t until one technician took a night ride that we recognized the real potential for danger. He narrowly missed a fork lift parked under the wire by just a few feet. After that, I posted notices around the white room stating that any further unauthorized use of the slide wire system would result in immediate dismissal.

Even though the slide wire was our only emergency escape system from the white room, the Air Force refused to give it an official endorsement. Two days before the launch of Gemini-Titan 2, an unmanned test launch, we arrived at work to find a red tag attached to the wire at the platform. With the slide wire’s prohibition clearly indicated, I went straight to John Yardley’s office with the problem. He was quick to consult with NASA and with Mr. Mac about the issue. It was decided that I would go to Col. Jim Albert, the Complex Manager, and ask him what other escape means the Air Force had for our personnel. If they had none, I was to inform him that our people would not support the launch. By early afternoon, the red tag was gone.

With the slide wire available for use, I figured we had done about all we could to provide for a white room emergency. One other problem soon cropped up, however. I received a phone call from John Yardley. One of our company’s vice presidents, Walter Burke, apparently wanted to talk with me. I could not imagine what he wanted, but I got the impression there was a problem. I stopped whatever I was working on and headed straight over to Yardley’s office where the two men awaited.

“There seems to be a disturbing rumor circulating back in St. Louis,” Mr. Burke started out. “I’ve heard that you have a, uhm..., lead pipe... stashed up in the white room.”

I knew what rumor he was talking about. The story had gotten out that 1 had hidden away a piece of pipe with which to incapacitate anyone who might block the exit to the slide wire in an emergency. A panicked person could stop the safe escape of many people. I had seen it happen in a bombing raid in Germany during World War II. It was a problem I had spent many hours trying to solve.

“It is true,” I had to tell him. “Til be happy to show you where it is if you would like to see it.”

A pale expression crept over the vice president’s face, but he said nothing. The room was silent as Yardley and Burke digested what I had just said, I guess they had not thought about the realities that we dealt with until now. In an emergency, you have to react. There may be no time for negotiation or debate.

After some discussion, Mr. Burke summarized his position. There was no way that McDonnell management could condone me bludgeoning someone with a pipe. As far as they were concerned I was to get rid of it and they never intended to discuss the matter again. The pipe stayed right where I put it.

In late 1963, NASA selected fourteen more astronauts. The astronaut corps bulged with thirty members, all primarily concerned with when they could expect a flight. John Glenn was a favorite with the public and with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. When the word got out that Glenn would not be risked in another flight, he began looking into a possible future in politics. By early 1964, he had retired from NASA.

Deke Slayton and Chris Kraft had developed themselves into the team that picked the flight crews for upcoming missions. Everyone recognized that the quicker they gained favor with these two, the quicker their names moved up the selection list. The first manned Gemini flight was scheduled for late 1964 with Alan Shepard, its commander. His co-pilot, a term which no astronaut wanted to be saddled with, was to be Tom Stafford. Gus Grissom and John Young were chosen as their backups.

It wasn’t long into their training that Shepard began suffering from dizzy spells and nausea. The doctors diagnosed it as an inner ear disease called Meniere’s Syndrome. Hopes for a quick recovery faded and Shepard found himself on the grounded list along with Slayton. Deke had recently been promoted into a new position, the Assistant Director of Flight Crew Operations. In an effort to keep the disheartened Shepard involved, he convinced him to take on the vacant position of Chief Astronaut. The two of them ruled with iron fists.

Slayton and Shepard cornered a huge amount of power in the astronaut office. Any astronaut who wanted a flight soon learned that he better impress these two men. Thus, twenty seven astronauts went to work at their respective duties, determined to outdo each other.

The Mercury 7 astronauts were now whittled down to four on flight status. Scott Carpenter had been shuffled over to monitor the design of the lunar module and it did not look like he could expect a Gemini flight. That left three with definite seniority. Each having a spaceflight under his belt, their names automatically started out at the top of the list. Even so, their requirements to perform were just as stringent as those of any of the new guys.

Every astronaut was responsible for some area of specialization. In that area, he was expected to become an expert and his position on the list reflected his success at gaining that expertise. Some were assigned to guidance programs, the propulsion systems, or environmental control systems. Others concentrated on the ejection seats, space suits, EVA (extravehicular activity) issues, or experiments. Dozens and dozens of areas of specialization existed and there was no way one person could learn it all in sufficient detail. Each astronaut was expected to master his subject, then mentor the others in the main parts of the area. With the number of astronauts now in the program and the number of Gemini flights anticipated, it did not require a rocket scientist to see that some people would not get a flight at all. Thus, the competition was keen. Not only did each man have to excel. Now he felt the pressure to justify the need for his expertise in one of the upcoming flights.

The competition extended into the endless series of simulations that all the astronauts undertook. Controllers were constantly throwing in some type of glitch or unexpected condition. Being prepared for anything was the key, and the astronauts all worked extremely hard to learn everything they could and commit it to reflex. Each man labored to score higher than his peers. It was an odd mix of camaraderie and conflict. Some men took the competition as sport. For others it was deadly serious.

To me, Gus Grissom seemed to be the most knowledgeable. He studied the spacecraft in such detail that he was always surprising the engineers by diagnosing problems before they could. He was very, very sharp and I think he spent more time in St. Louis monitoring the construction of the spacecraft than any of the other astronauts. The cockpit layout - the positioning of the instruments and controls - could largely be attributed to him.

Gus always recognized the danger involved in spaceflight and believed that knowledge was the key to a successful mission. His expertise and dedication guaranteed him a high position in the astronaut pecking order. Of course it didn’t hurt any that he and Deke were very close, either. Not many people chose to stand up and go toe to toe with Grissom.

Now Wally, he developed into a stickler for details. He knew things and asked questions that NASA and the contractors wished he would stay away from. I kind of liked it. He would go to meetings and confront people about problems. They soon learned that if there was a skeleton in the closet, they better either get rid of it or have a damned good explanation before sitting down at the table with him. Wally joined Pete Conrad in having the ability to defuse tense situations with a joke. They were both a pleasure to work with.

John Young was also a sharp-witted one. He could make a statement in a meeting and it would slide right past you. Then, three minutes later, it would dawn on you what he had said. John spoke with a drawl and was a man of few words. But what he said was always right on target. And like Wally, he did not care if you wore a badge that identified you as an engineer or a vice president, He called it like it was. I knew better than to ever present him with something as fact unless I could prove or document it. As he gained tenure, he became a great help when it came to dealing with inter-agency problems. Some people didn’t like him, but if they were honest with themselves, they would readily admit that his contributions were tremendous.

Tom Stafford was a guy that I was particularly fond of. He had two simple rules and he lived by them both: don’t lie to me, and don’t tell me you are going to do something unless you intend to do it. If Stafford told you something, it was as good as gold. It did not matter if he was talking to a janitor. If he promised something, he would always deliver.

There was, of course, no way to know it at the time, but Neil Armstrong was destined for a singular place in history. Probably not the most charismatic individual, he was certainly one of the most professional in his work. Any subject lie was involved in, he would study in minute detail. He took his time and worked quietly and with perfection. Armstrong was clearly not the conventional astronaut. He seemed more like a meticulous engineer and kept pretty much to himself. Most would agree that he did not make friends easily.

Buzz Aldrin was one of the third group of astronauts. He had recently finished a doctorate in orbital mechanics at MIT and stayed somewhat aloof from the rest. He carried his imagined stature openly and felt he should be in a class by himself. Some considered him to be arrogant. Needless to say, he became quite a bit of a loner and not too many people cozied up to him.

Another member of the third group that stood out to me was Gene Cernan. Barely thirty years old, he seemed to have his mind on the moon right from the beginning. He was extremely enthusiastic. Whatever there was to be done, he always wanted to do more. If you explained something to him, he wanted to go farther. Many times I had to get a group of engineers together because he wanted to dig more deeply into one of the systems. He had a one track mind. “I want to go to the moon and I’ll do whatever it takes to get there.” Gene also had a real talent with words. He was always able to explain himself with perfect clarity and could quickly set people around him at ease. When he was happy about something, you could plan on having him grab your arm and flash you a big, confident-looking smile. He had no problem with saying “thank you” when he felt you had done something well.

The entire Gemini program was running behind schedule all through 1964, probably due to a series of developmental problems that NASA had wrestled with in 1962 and 1963. We had originally hoped to get our first manned mission launched in October of ‘64, but problems soon killed that idea. Expenses were greatly overrunning the budget and the Titan II booster was giving us lots of headaches. From the first test launches of the rocket, a significant lengthwise vibration was noted. It could pound a payload with up to 5 g’s of oscillating force. Much more than an astronaut could be expected to endure.

While The Martin Company worked on the vibration problem in the booster, North American toiled away with its paraglider system. An engineer at Langley named Francis Rogallo was originally credited with the idea. Fie had been experimenting with a folding cloth wing since the 1950’s, very similar in concept to the hang gliders that are so popular today. In spite of some notable critics, NASA management considered it very seriously as a way to fly a returning spacecraft back to Earth. A contract to develop the system was awarded to North American Aviation and they began prototyping and testing at Langley.

Max Faget and Chris Kraft were both opposed to the paraglider system from the beginning. When a series of drop tests from helicopters were largely considered failures, the controversy began to escalate. Although there were a few minor successes in subsequent tests, the system was proving to be very unreliable and by the end of 1963 was abandoned.

Martin had better luck with their vibration problems. Modifications made to the fuel and oxidizer feed-lines proved successful in damping the oscillations. Although there were still some concerns about second stage instability, the Titan booster problems were becoming much less worrisome.

In April, 1964, we were finally able to get our first Gemini test launch accomplished. The sleek vehicle lifted off from Pad 19 with the curiously understated flame that was indicative of hypergolic fuels. A little puff of orange smoke, the eruption of steam off to the sides of the pad, and Gemini-Titan 1 climbed into the bright blue sky, its fiery plume nearly invisible. Since we still lacked a landing system for the spacecraft, GT-1 was flight planned as a 3-orbit mission with no recovery. The test of the reentry and landing systems would be conducted on our second test flight, Gemini-Titan 2.

A series of setbacks immediately started. The spacecraft, a full-up production model was late in arriving from St. Louis. Once we got the vehicle assembled on Pad 19, Florida weather became our greatest enemy. First, lightning struck the erector and required an extensive evaluation of all the electrical components. Then, two hurricanes blew through and the entire vehicle had to be taken down and hangared. It was not until January of 1965 that we finally got the launch off and the mission successfully completed. Nothing else seemed to stand in our way. Our next launch scheduled, Gemini-Titan 3, would put Gus Grissom and John Young into orbit.

Grissom and Young, along with their backups, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, had already been in training for many months. Initially, they worked out in the Gemini simulator in St. Louis. Then, that machine was crated up and shipped to Houston where the Manned Spacecraft Center was located. A second Gemini simulator was located at the Cape, so the astronauts spent plenty of time in both places.

With the upcoming flight of GT-3, once again the white room became a popular place for visitors. Prior to a visit by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, we had some Secret Service agents previewing the facilities. Stereotypical of their type, they wore dark suits, never smiled, and did not want to take orders from anybody. Two of them were nosing around the white room and getting in the way. I asked one of them to move and he replied that he didn’t take directions from me. His boss worked at the White House. So I indicated to him that if he intended to stay in that spot, he would soon feel a pretty hot blast on his rear end. We were getting ready to test one of the reaction control thrusters on the spacecraft.

On another day we had two, shall I say “pretentious”, NASA officials from Houston inspecting the white room. I don’t remember who they were, but 1 sure do remember their attitude. They were looking all over and sticking their faces into everything. Finally I decided they had seen enough and asked them to leave.

“I just want to make it clear that NASA does not report to contractors,” one of the men told me. “We’ll decide when it is time to leave.”

I responded telling him that in spite of what he may have heard, the white room was under my control and that they were interfering with our work.

He gave me a nasty look and answered simply, “Too bad.” He turned his back to me and started up a conversation with his partner.

“Alright,” I said. I picked up the phone and dialed the security guard down on the base of the erector. Within a few minutes, the red flashing light of a Pan American security car appeared on the ramp. Three minutes later, two uniformed security officers were in the white room with us.

“Which ones would you like removed?” one of the guards asked me.

I indicated the two gentlemen. At this point, they realized that they might be getting into a bit of trouble.

“Okay, we’re all done here. We will be leaving now.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be leaving with us,” the guard said. “We’ll take you to the security headquarters and your base manager can come get you.”

After that, my reputation spread to Houston. On more than one occasion I was pointed out to someone as being the mean son-of-a-gun that called security on so-and-so.

The funny part of it was that the higher up in the hierarchy the people were, the more likely they were to follow our rules and regulations. Don’t touch the spacecraft, don’t lean into the hatch opening, make sure your pockets are empty. They rarely gave us any problems. It was usually the junior bureaucrats that figured the rules did not apply to them.

I guess even McDonnell worried sometimes that I was being a bit too strict. John Yardley called me into his office one morning to ask about a story he had heard. Supposedly, I had thrown Mr. Mac out of the white room on a recent visit.

“I would never do that,” I told John.

The truth of the matter is that Mr. Mac had been in the white room and was distracting everyone from their work with his questions. I needed a way to politely suggest that he leave.

“You know, that rickety old elevator frequently stops working,” I mentioned to him. It was up at our level and was getting ready to go down. “You might want to take it now. If it stops working you’ll have to climb down a hundred foot ladder to get to the bottom.”

He took the hint and left us to our work.

“I didn’t throw him out, John. I was just looking out for Iris health and well-being.” Yardley shook his head as if I was a lost cause. “That sounds typically like you.” By late 1964, the new Manned Spacecraft Operations Building, across the Banana River from Complex 19 was opened, part of the NASA’s continued expansion. Although everyone would continue to refer to the entire area as “the Cape,” the new facilities were actually on Merritt Island in an area called the Kennedy Space Center. Known as the MSOB, the building provided expanded crew quarters for astronauts preparing for missions. The comfortable apartments with private bedrooms, a kitchen, and gymnasium were very popular with the men. On March 15, 1965, Gus and John Young, Wally Schirra, and Tom Stafford, moved into the new quarters in preparation for GT-3.

It was a reasonably short ride from the MSOB over to the launch area. In the early morning hours of March 23, Gus and John hopped out of bed for a ritual breakfast and physical examinations, followed by their ride into work. Their first stop was at a trailer parked near the gate to Complex 16. It was time to get dressed for a flight into space.

When the two stepped inside the suit up trailer, they were met by Wally Schirra. He was already dressed out in a butchered up Mercury space suit. A long string of old NASA passes hung around his neck. “Hey! In case you guys get chicken, I’m ready to go.”

The silver pressure suits used in the Mercury program were modified high altitude suits developed by B.F. Goodrich for the Navy. It was hoped that the aluminized outer layer would help to reflect heat. The Mercury suits had a very similar look to the full pressure suits developed by The David Clark Company for the X-15 program. Ventilation and cooling problems had plagued the Mercury flights. Modifications and improvements were going to be needed for the suits worn in Gemini.

B.F. Goodrich prototyped some new suits for the Gemini program, but was ultimately beaten out of the contract by David Clark. Their earliest proposals retained the common silver outer layer, but by the time that GT-3 was ready to fly, the Clark suits had evolved into a white suit called the G3C.

My own day got its usual early start. The pad area was evacuated during fueling, but by 3:00 a.m., I was back in the white room with a small group of required technicians. Wally and Tom Stafford went through their preflight checklists inside the spacecraft while we ran through our own long list of pre-launch procedures.

While we were busy in the white room with preparations, Gus and John donned their new space suits in the trailer. The ride in the transfer van from there to Pad 19 took only a few minutes. Just after 7:00 a.m., my crew and I welcomed the pair into the white room. There were plenty of smiles, but not much of the looking that we had on some of the Mercury flights. Gus and John were serious about the flight and had little room for levity.

We got John into the right seat of the spacecraft shortly before sliding Gus into the commander’s seat. Our technicians went smoothly about their duties securing straps, flipping switches, and performing systems tests. Everything was operating like clockwork. After the completion of the suit leakage tests, I got the go-ahead from the test conductor to remove the seven safety pins which held each ejection seat inert. Reporting that was done to the blockhouse, the go-ahead was given to close up the hatches. This was always a very sobering time forme, seeing my friends being locked up inside their machine. At this point, I always felt that the mission was already underway.

After we performed a cabin leak check, the control room ran a series of final checks before giving me the OK to clear the area. The McDonnell test conductor passed the word to the Martin test conductor that we were dealing the erector. We departed the white room for the fallback area as the countdown continued. My last official duty was to report in at the roadblock that my crew and I were standing by.

A nitrogen tetroxide leak caused a hold at T minus 35 minutes, but a Martin technician was able to quickly locate the problem and get it fixed. The countdown resumed and we all waited anxiously, staring at the silver, black, and white vehicle on the pad. Some low, scrubby trees separated us from Complex 19, but the height of the pad gave us a perfect view.

At roughly T minus 30 seconds, hypergolic fuels began glug, glug, glugging down their feed-lines in preparation for the final opening of the valves. At 9:24, the explosive chemicals met and the engines of the Titan burst to life. Thousands of gallons of water flooded into the lower pad area to protect the structure and attenuate the sound. A quick puff of orange smoke, then a volcanic eruption of thick, white steam spewed out from the flame buckets as the stately vehicle climbed away from the umbilical tower.

The flight of GT-3 went exactly as planned with three successful orbits. It was so “nominal” that it was almost anticlimactic. One famous story that has been told too many times, involves a corned beef sandwich from Wolfie’s Deli in Cocoa Beach. I guess Gus had been complaining about the food NASA had developed for consumption onboard. Heaven knows, it was pretty bad. At any rate, Wally procured this sandwich from Wolfie’s and passed it on to John Young who stuffed it into one of his space suit pockets. As a gag, he presented it to Gus while they drifted silently through space. John later told me that Gus had complained because it didn’t have mustard on it. Anyway, when the story finally slipped out, NASA management had a fit, and even some congressional members began bringing the issue up. Fortunately, they did not find out about the stash of dollar bills that a couple of my supervisors had hidden aboard the spacecraft. Evidently they had gotten Grissom’s OK, and retrieved them after the mission as souvenirs. Gus did not forget about me though. After the flight he presented me with a Roosevelt dime he had carried. On it, he had etched out “GT-3”. When Young saw him give it to me, he joked, “You cheap bastard. Why didn’t you give him a dollar?”

After GT-3, NASA began clamping down on unauthorized items being smuggled on-board flights. The astronauts would be required to manifest any souvenirs carried along on future missions, and they would be strictly limited by size and weight.

Gemini-Titan 3 also marked another passing. It was the last manned spaceflight to be controlled from the Cape. New mission control facilities at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston would take over the instant the vehicle cleared the tower. It would not affect our work at the Cape, but I must admit I was sad to see some of my old friends transferred away to Texas.