The Unbroken Chain

Chapter 6 - Learning to walk...

As it turned out, 1965 was our busiest year yet. The media was constantly hounding us for information and some of our people were involved in press leaks. In one effort to keep control of the delicate information we worked with, I locked up the telephones in the white room. For myself, I had a special phone installed with an unlisted number. I only gave the number out to people who had a need to know.

Not long after getting my “hot line” installed, I began getting calls on it. Whenever it rang, I would dash over, anticipating an important communication.

“Guenter Wendt,” I would answer.

“Ah, yes, I’d like to speak to Mr. Jones,” this rough sounding voice would say.

“No, there’s no Mr. Jones here,” I responded the first couple of times.

Then I got the telephone company to change the number and passed the new listing on to all the people who might have the need to reach me. Sure enough, a couple of days later I would get the call.

“Can I speak to Mr. Jones?” the same gruff voice asked.

Exasperated, I barked back, “Look there is no Mr. Jones here!” Another call to the phone company to change the number again.

What I didn’t know was that one of my technicians was a former telephone company employee. He knew a number that you could dial to find out the number of the phone you were calling from. Each time I changed the number, he would simply dial in and find out what it was.

The next time I got one of these calls, all of my crew were standing around watching as I picked up the handset.

“Guenter Wendt.”

A different voice replied.

“Uh, hello. This is Mr. Jones. Have there been any messages for me?”

The expression on my face must have said it all. Everyone in the white room broke out in laughter. It was not the only time that I would be the butt of someone’s joke.

One morning I arrived at my office to find three or four of the astronauts loitering about. 1 knew that seemed kind of odd and had a feeling something must be going on. Everyone said good morning and made some small talk as I sat down at my desk. The phone rang and I answered it while I put the key into the lock of my center desk drawer. Just as I slid the drawer open, an angry three foot blacksnake sprang out into my lap. I was so startled that I shoved myself away from the desk, ripping the telephone cord completely out of the wall.

Hysterical laughter broke out as I scrambled away from the enraged snake. Pete Conrad howled and pointed a finger at me.

“Gotcha!” Not to be outdone, I looked for the right opportunity to get back at Pete. That was the name of the game.

Several weeks later, a live TV press conference was scheduled at the MSOB. Pete was running late and by the time he arrived, the conference had already started. I had no idea that my little prank would work out as effectively as it did. The day before I had sneaked into the crew quarters. With a needle and thread, I had sewn together the inner lining of the arms in Pete’s dress jacket. I had figured he would get dressed in his bedroom and discover my joke there. So here came Pete, running up to the table, jacket in hand. In full view of the television cameras, he started to slip his jacket on. He tried to stick his hands in, but they wouldn’t go. He turned the jacket all around inspecting it. After a few more fumbling attempts, he realized he had been had and sheepishly put the jacket over the back of his chair.

“Gotcha, Pete!” I thought quietly to myself.

In spite of all the sophisticated hardware that we worked with, we were constantly reminded that the launch complexes were surrounded by Florida wilderness. Snakes, nesting birds, gopher tortoises, and biting insects extracted their price for allowing us to share their homeland. During preparations for one launch, a line of ants was discovered. They had somehow worked their way up the side of the booster and had entered the spacecraft through the hatch. Ants were not a contingency we had thought of and it took several days of work by exterminators to finally solve that problem.

Walking around the ground surrounding the pad, it was not unusual to confront some larger examples of Florida wildlife. On one occasion, a female inspection supervisor was returning to her car after the end of second shift. The parking lot at the base of the pad was unlit. As she approached the driver’s side, she noticed a large dark outline on the pavement next to her door. When it suddenly moved, she let out a blood-curdling scream. The outline was a nine foot alligator.

When I got in to work the next morning, I heard about the incident and resulting panic. In the morning’s test conductor’s meeting, I mentioned to Frank Carey that we needed to get some lights installed in the parking lot immediately. His response was that there was nothing they could do on such short notice.

“Well that’s alright with me,” I told him, “but there will be no McDonnell personnel available on second and third shifts unless we get some lights out there.” Carey did not like that at all. He said he would call the old man or Yardley to override me.

“Okay,” I said. “Just let me know by noon whether or not you plan to get us some lighting.” I was determined to call off the two nighttime shifts if the lighting was not in place.

After I left the meeting, I quickly got on the phone to Yardley and explained the situation. He promised to get it handled and I continued on out to the pad. A few hours later, I saw a large Pan American van driving up the access road toward the parking lot. On each of the four corners, they deposited a large electrical generator with a set of pole-mounted lights.

The subject of space walking had been addressed long before the flight of GT-4 was scheduled. The official term was EVA for “extravehicular activity”. It was apparent to everyone in the space program that, at some point, astronauts were going to have to get out of the spacecraft and do some work outside. But leaving the safety of the pressurized cabin created a lot of new problems.

First, pressurizing the space suits, depressurizing the spacecraft, opening the hatch, closing the hatch, and repressurizing again was not a trivial issue at all. This was a big concern for McDonnell engineers from the very beginning.

A space walking astronaut would also need a more substantial suit. The pressure suit designed for use inside the spacecraft was not adequate protection for an astronaut in open space. The David Clark Company created a new suit providing better thermal insulation and protection from possible micrometeoroid impacts. It was not without cost, though. The new EVA suit was ten pounds heavier and considerably more bulky than the GC3 suit.

The crew of Gemini 4, Ed White and Jim McDivitt, had been training for a possible space walk for several months. An EVA had been anticipated, but no formal decision had yet been made. The two hoped that being trained and equipped for the procedure would increase their chances of getting the EVA scheduled for their flight. It turned out that they were correct.

In March, Russian Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first human to leave his spacecraft for the vacuum of space. What they did not tell us at the time was that he almost got stuck trying to get back inside. Anyway, once again, the press was all over us. Upstaged by the Soviets again. By the time it became common knowledge that a space walk would be performed on GT-4, the public just assumed NASA was trying to play catch up.

We got White and McDivitt launched on June 3. The only significant SNAFU occurred at T-minus 35 minutes. Just as the erector was starting to be lowered, it got stuck. No one knew what was wrong, so it was raised up vertical, then lowered once more. At the same spot, it stuck again. For over an hour, engineers worked on the problem. Finally, an electrical connection was discovered improperly attached and was quickly fixed. The count resumed and shortly after 10 a.m., GT-4 roared into the sky.

With the vehicle in the air, control was passed over to the new Mission Control Center in Houston. The remainder of the flight would be directed from there. Walt Williams had retired in 1964 and Chris Kraft moved up to the position of Gemini Operations Director. He now doubled as the lead Flight Controller-while McDivitt and White orbited overhead.

Kraft was an interesting fellow. As an engineer, I think he was technically very competent. Perhaps even on a par with John Yardley. As a manager, he was strictly business. He was very capable of getting the job done, no matter what problems might come up. And it didn’t much matter whose heads might roll in the process, either. Sympathy was not one of his stronger qualities.

If he ever needed some information, or there was some way that you could help him, Kraft was always ready to receive. But if you ever came to him asking a return favor you could pretty much forget it. He could be stone cold and uncooperative. It seemed to me that if you were not in a position to help him, he had very little use for you. Although I frequently saw Chris in meetings or during his visits to the pad, I cannot say that I worked closely with him. So, maybe the people he worked with on a daily basis might have a different impression. But he seemed to me to be short on compliments, and a bit too willing to accept help without giving due credit. If you ever slighted him, you could expect it to come back to haunt you later. Next to the program itself, you could safely say that the welfare of Chris Kraft’s career was his primary concern. He had a hard job and did it very professionally. But he did not make many friends in the process.

For the first time in a couple of years, the public was very excited about the space program. Although we continued to work at a hectic pace, people outside the program had felt a substantial delay between Mercury and Gemini. Two years is a long time when the only space news you hear is about the Russians. The people of America had begun to forget about our goal to reach the moon. The assassination of John Kennedy, the detonation by the Red Chinese of their first nuclear weapon, and growing U.S. involvement in Viet Nam overshadowed our work. If Grissom and Young’s flight reawakened the American people, Ed White’s space-walk captivated them.

“My feet are out,” reported White.

McDivitt echoed to ground, “Okay. He’s out. He’s floating free.”

For twenty-one minutes space rookie Edward White cavorted in free-fall, connected to humanity by only his heavy, gold-wrapped umbilical. There was no live video, but audio tapes rolled to capture the historic dialog while Gus Grissom manned the CapCom console in Houston.

White: “All right. Now I’ve come above the spacecraft and I’m under my own control... Okay, I’d better get over. Okay, I’m coming over... See me yet?’’ McDivitt: “No, sure don’t.” White: “Oh, there you are. I can spin around now.” McDivitt: “Just a second. You’re right in front, Ed. You look beautiful.” Grissom: “Houston CAP COM. Has he egressed?” McDivitt: “He’s out, Gus, and it’s really nifty... The gun works swell. He’s been able to maneuver all over. Out front, back under the nose, and he’s back out again.” Grissom: “That’s great!” White: “Hello, Gus. How do you read, CAP COM?” Grissom: “I read you now, Ed.”

After tinkering a few minutes with the radios, the dialog got interesting. McDivitt: “Tell them what you think.” White: “That’s right, CAP COM, it’s very easy to maneuver with the gun. The only problem is that I haven’t got enough fuel. I’ve exhausted the fuel now and I was able to maneuver myself around the front of the spacecraft, back, and maneuver right up to the top of the adapter... Tins is the greatest experience I’ve . . . . it’s just tremendous! Right now I’m standing on my head and I’m looking right down, and it looks like we’re coming up on the coast of California. I’m going into a slow rotation to the right. There is absolutely no disorientation associated with it.” McDivitt: “One thing about it. When Ed gets out there and starts wiggling around, it sure makes the spacecraft tough to control.” White: “I feel just about like a . . . . commercial.”

For the next several minutes, White and McDivitt concentrated on their photography.

McDivitt: “Ed, smile.” White: “I’m looking right down your gun barrel.” McDivitt: “Let me take a close-up picture of you... You smeared my windshield, you dirty dog!” White: “Did I really?... Well hand me a Kleenex and I’ll clean it.”

As the pair flew toward Texas, McDivitt joked on the intercom. “Hey, Gus, I don’t know if you can read, but we’re right over Houston... Run out and look!” All the while, Grissom had been trying to raise them on the radio. McDivitt: “I’m going out to PUSH-TO-TALK and see what the Flight Director has got to say. Gus, this is Jim. Got any message for us?” Grissom: “Gemini 4. Get back in!” White: “What are we over now, Jim?” McDivitt: “I don’t know, we’re coming over the West now, and they want you to come back in.” White: “Aw, Cape, let me just find a few pictures.” McDivitt: “No, back in. Come on.” White: “Coming in. Listen, you could almost not drag me in, but I’m coming.”

A few more minutes of stalling by the reluctant space-walker.

White: “This is the saddest moment of my life.” McDivitt: “Well, you’re going to find a sadder one when we have to come down from this whole thing.” White: “I’m coming.” McDivitt: “Okay .... Come on now.” Often I get asked if I would have liked to have made a spaceflight. The answer is, “Of course!” I have thought about it many times. During World War II, I flew right seat in a Luftwaffe Junkers-88 night fighter. Since then I have spent many hours in a variety of aircraft as well as spacecraft simulators. I enjoy the feel of the machine and would like nothing more than to tag along on a spaceflight. But as far as making a space-walk is concerned, I’m not so sure I would want to do that. Having seen films of monkeys being subjected to rapid decompression, I have to admit that the idea of snagging my space suit during an EVA would be quite a worry. A walk in the free-fall of orbit must be a real thrill to experience, but I would prefer to keep my own hypothetical journey within the confines of a pressurized cabin.

With the successful four day, 62-orbit mission of GT-4, it was pretty obvious that we were closing the gap in the space race with the Soviets. They had put two spacecraft into orbit simultaneously, had flown a woman cosmonaut, had orbited a cramped three-man crew, and had performed a space walk, all before our first manned flight on GT-3. But two highly successful Gemini flights had now cleared the way. We were ready to get on with the real business of spaceflight: long-term missions, and orbital rendezvous and docking. Everything else had been done just to get to this point. Now, the real work began.

Gemini-Titan 5 was scheduled for launch in August of 1965, crewed by Mercury veteran Gordo Cooper and rookie Pete Conrad. Their flight would be for a record eight days in orbit.

Back on GT-3, Gus had tried to sell NASA management on the idea of naming his spacecraft. The name he chose was Molly Brown, in reference to his sunken Mercury capsule and a famous Broadway play, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.” Although they were not too happy about it, NASA brass gave their permission. It was not, however, a tradition they intended on continuing. Gordo came up with the idea of creating a mission patch for Gemini 5. He picked an old covered wagon displaying the words “8 Days or Bust” as the central part of the logo. Management did not like that idea at all. What if the flight failed to complete the eight days scheduled? Would the public consider the mission a “bust”? There was some internal arguing back and forth. Ultimately, the crew got their patch with one change: the inscription “8 Days or Bust” had to go. Cooper had already had a bunch of the patches made up, so they went back and some material was sewn over the inscription, keeping the wording hidden.

Pete was already an established joker. But he also quickly proved himself to be one of the sharpest guys in the astronaut corps. Like Schirra and Young, he had no qualms in speaking right up about problems. He was smart and had a keen eye for engineering. His peers accepted him as a top notch pilot. Pete Conrad was what everyone thought an astronaut should be. A rocket-jockey, smart-Alec with a degree from Princeton. “If you can’t be good, be colorful,” he would later say. When Pete died in a motorcycle accident in 1998,1 was extremely saddened. I had forever lost a close friend. But I think his death was more than that. Pete Conrad had a lot more to offer and he just wasn’t finished yet. The one thing I am grateful for is that he went out in style, doing something he enjoyed. Everyone loved Pete. I did, too.

With the extended flight planned for GT-5, fuel cells would be required. Onboard batteries had done the job on previous missions, but the electrical needs on an eight day flight ruled them out. Batteries would simply weigh too much. So, testing the abilities of our fuel cells was as much a mission objective as were the rendezvous tests that were planned.

I don’t remember when it exactly occurred, but we had a very close call with the fuel cells just prior to one of the Gemini flights. We had cleared the area and the fuel cell tanks were loaded with hydrogen and oxygen. On our return to the white room, I checked the air consistency gage that was on the wall. To my great alarm, it showed 92% hydrogen! This colorless and odorless gas is extremely flammable. If we were ever in a dangerous situation, this was it.

Much of our clothing was made of nylon and polyester, synthetic fabrics which built up static charges rather easily. A static spark in this hydrogen-rich environment could easily detonate a huge explosion.

“Stay put! Don’t move!” I cried out to my crew.

I could hear the NASA test conductor, Skip Chauvin, calling in my headset. I quickly yelled out to everyone not to key their mics. The tiniest arc in an electrical switch could easily turn our white room into an inferno. By now, Skip was starting to get concerned since he did not know what was going on, and I was not answering his calls.

I turned to a technician standing over by the elevator. “I want you to very carefully, pull the safety override handle and pry open the elevator doors.” There was no longer an elevator in the shaft. By opening the doors to the outside, we could begin to vent the room. We all stood very still for several minutes as the hydrogen concentration slowly began to drop. When it got down to about 80% I asked another technician across the room to open the door to the slide wire. Now with some cross ventilation, the remaining dangerous gas blew out into the open air.

The blockhouse had been in a near panic. If it seemed like a long lime to them, it had seemed like an eternity to us. Actually, it was probably only five, maybe ten, minutes. During that time, the blockhouse crew could detect no activity around the white room, and we would not answer their calls on the communications loop. With the hydrogen concentration back to normal, I keyed my mic to tell Skip what the problem had been. I’ll bet my heart was still racing. This had certainly been a very close call and it reminded us that you can never let your guard down.

On August 19, Cooper and Conrad reported for duty in the white room. As Gordo walked toward me carrying his ventilator, he snapped his “private fifth-class” salute. I could see the big grin on his face through his visor and proudly saluted back. Pete followed him exposing his own gap-toothed grin, waving at everyone as he went. These guys were clearly having fun. As we closed up the hatches and began vacating the white room, dark storm clouds began to roll in from the south.

In spite of the threatening weather, the decision to lower the erector and wait it out was made. Soon the complex was under the black clouds of a fullblown thunderstorm. Lightning crackled all around and we took a strike on a main power cable to the pad. Mission rules dictated a scrub. There would be no launch today. Fortunately, Florida thunderstorms usually dissipate as quickly as they rise up. We were soon able to raise the erector and extract the crew. Recycling the vehicle and systems would take about 48 hours so we immediately went back to work.

On the morning of the 21st, we once again got the crew loaded and the spacecraft buttoned up. Sunny weather greeted the black and white vehicle as it motored into the sky. In short order, Gordo and Pete were in orbit. Not long after, the fuel cells began acting up.

Pete was the first to notice that oxygen pressure in the cells was starting to drop. Mission Control radioed up instructions to switch on the tank’s heater to raise the pressure. Meanwhile, Cooper jettisoned the rendezvous “pod”. This was a little package of electronics stored underneath the spacecraft in the white adapter section. It was to be used for rendezvous trials.

Oxygen pressure in the fuel cells continued to drop in spite of the heating. To conserve energy, Cooper powered down the spacecraft and awaited further instructions from Houston. No longer being tracked, the pod drifted uselessly off into space.

As engineers in St. Louis ran fuel cell tests, the oxygen pressure onboard Gemini 5 finally stabilized. McDonnell concluded that the fuel cells could be safely operated at the reduced pressure levels. So, one by one, Cooper and Conrad began powering their spacecraft systems back up. Soon the spacecraft was operational again and modified plans for the mission were radioed to the crew.

Although not exactly as planned, Pete and Gordo completed their eight-day flight. Amended tests and rendezvous maneuvers were successfully performed. We knew some fine tuning was needed, but it was obvious that long term flights, fuel cells, and rendezvous was no “bust”. And of equal note, we had now passed the Russians. They would never seriously challenge us in space again.

Having already launched three manned missions and one unmanned one in the year, we were really pumping out the work. With Gemini 6 scheduled for October and Gemini 7 for December, there was no let up in sight.

GT-6, crewed by Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, had a primary objective of rendezvous with an Agena target vehicle. The GT-7 crew of rookies Frank Borman and Jim Lovell were out to set an endurance record of over thirteen days in space. We had no idea of how the two missions were about to become entwined.

On October 25, a General Dynamics executive pushed the button to launch their Agena payload into orbit atop a shiny Atlas booster. Within minutes, things started looking bad and it appeared that the Agena might have exploded. NASA public affairs officer Paul Haney made the official announcement. The Agena was lost and, thus, no target for Schirra and Stafford. An obvious change in plans was needed. Walter Burke and John Yardley came up with the idea of a rendezvous with GT-7 and NASA set to work to revise the schedules. Gemini 7 was going to be in orbit for about two weeks. That meant that if they were to meet in space, both launches had to be conducted within a two-week period.

“Oh, man. You guys are crazy,” was all I could say when we were told of the schedule. I think it was Frank Carey who was conducting the meeting. NASA wanted to get Gemini 6 launched just nine days after the launch of Gemini 7! Everyone moaned at the thought as he began to layout the timetable.

My first impression was that it simply could not be done. I did not see any way that we could get two vehicles prepped and launched in that short amount of time. Normal turnaround was about three weeks. And that was if there was no structural damage to the pad from the previous launch. They wanted us to do it in nine days! Add in a major repair and it would be impossible.

After each launch there is a huge cleanup. Ground support equipment has to be evaluated and repaired. Thousands of pounds of burned cables have to be replaced. All the cranes and lifts have to be inspected and, probably, repaired. All the replacement parts have to be tested. Then you have the problem of trucking in the booster stages and getting them erected. Once the booster is in place, the spacecraft has to be hoisted up and mated. A multitude of pyrotechnic SQIBs must be installed. And all of that is just to get the vehicle assembled.

Next, a long checkout has to be performed. We had thirty to forty procedures required just to check out the spacecraft alone. Every system must be checked out and the interfaces between systems carefully tested in sequence. Every single plug must be double-checked. Each test must be reviewed. It was going to be a huge effort operating around the clock. There would be no time off for anyone. Everything had to click.

On December 4, Gemini 7 was launched and we hurried into action to prepare for the launch of Wally and Tom in Gemini 6. A hydrogen line on the umbilical tower that was used to service the fuel cells had been severely damaged. Fortunately, GT-6 operated on battery power. Had it used fuel cells, it would have been impossible for us to get it off in time.

For the next eight days we worked at a frantic pace. It is all just a blur to me now. Even today I am somewhat surprised that we managed to pull it off. But that’s the way it was back then. When the schedule got tight, everyone pulled together. Nothing was more important than getting the launch off. It speaks so highly of the dedication and professionalism of every person who set foot on the pad. They all put their personal responsibilities aside and focused on the job. It was a great crew of people.

Things went so well that the Gemini 6 launch was actually moved up a day. On the morning of December 12, Schirra and Stafford rode out to the suit up trailer at Pad 16 in a white, Ford station wagon. Once suited for their flight, the transfer van carried them to the base of Pad 19. Soon, they entered the white room for the ingress ritual. Everything went smoothly. After the closeout, my crew and I retired to the fallback area to await the launch. I listened in to the command channel through my headset, monitoring the countdown as I always did. The orbit of Gemini 7 placed Borman and Lovell almost directly overhead. At 9:54 a.m., loud squeals were heard as turbines spun up and an eruption of orange smoke spewed out to one side. Gemini 6’s engines awakened. Briefly.

In the spacecraft and in the blockhouse, the mission clocks began running. But like a giant bomb, the vehicle sat motionless on the pad. Mission rules dictated that under these circumstances, commander Wally should pull the handle to eject the two crewman clear of the spacecraft. But a steely Wally Schirra knew intuitively that a liftoff had not occurred. Had he fired the ejection seats, two things would have happened. One, the two astronauts would have been subjected to a potentially dangerous ride. The ejection seats had never been manrated. No one felt quite confident enough to actually give them a try. And two, the spacecraft would have been destroyed by the ejection seat rockets. In either case, the rendezvous opportunity would be lost and the program would be set back for months. No, veteran Wally Schirra trusted his instincts and sat it out in the spacecraft as the fuel pressures began to lower.

After a safe termination of the count, Borman reported in on the radio that he had actually seen the ignition on the pad from his vantage point in space. With the launch aborted, immediate plans to retrieve the two frustrated crewmen were put into motion. A small propellant leak had been registered at the base of the Titan and four SCAPE-suited technicians were sent out to the pad. Their self-contained fireproof suits and helmets made them look like astronauts working at the base of the booster. It was quickly determined that a tail plug had pulled loose prematurely from the Titan’s first stage, causing the shutdown. What was even more disturbing was that a small plastic cap was discovered, still in place in a valve assembly. It had apparently never been removed since the engine was delivered. The shutdown had been a blessing in disguise. Had it not happened, there is a good chance that an engine failure would have occurred shortly after liftoff!

Once the propellant leak was repaired, fifty or more engineers and technicians swarmed the pad to inspect for damage. It was drenched in water from the blast suppression system. Soon, the okay was given to raise the erector and we made final plans to extract the crew. An hour and a half after the shutdown, my technicians were in the white room pulling Wally and Tom out. The two astronauts removed their helmets, exchanged a few words, then descended in the elevator. Mission rules required that they depart the pad in armored personnel carriers. Two were standing ready at the base of the ramp and whisked them away to the operations building.

Due mainly to Wally’s experience and nerves, the vehicle was able to be recycled for a successful launch just three days later. When Wally stepped off the elevator into the white room, the suit technician handed him a brown paper bag. He walked toward me smiling, then tossed it over to me underhanded. For the life of me, I cannot remember what was in that bag but I am sure it was a good joke.

Once again, the crew insertion proceeded smoothly. Then, countdown, ignition, and liftoff. And barely six hours into the mission the world’s first “true” rendezvous in space was performed. A new high point had been established in our trials for our assault on the moon. To me, this was the crown jewel of the entire Gemini program.

With the stress and success of Gemini 6 and 7 behind us, we were back to the less hectic pace of a launch every three months or so. Next up was Gemini 8 crewed by Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott. Gemini 9 was assigned to Charlie Bassett and Elliot See.

On February 28, 1966, See and Bassett, along with their Gemini 9 backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, climbed into two T-38 jets for a flight up to St. Louis. They were scheduled for several days of training on the simulator at our plant. A low ceiling and restricted visibility in the St. Louis area was noted and the pilots filed their instrument flight plans. By the time they reached their destination, the weather had deteriorated further. See came in on the approach first.

Dropping down out of the low clouds, his plane was high on the glide-slope. Too far down the runway centerline, See elected to pull up level under the cloud base and make a circling approach for another landing attempt. Stafford and Cernan came in behind them with a similar problem, but chose to follow the standard missed approach procedure and climbed straight out back into the clouds.

Apparently letting his airspeed bleed off in the turn, See hit the afterburners to arrest his sink rate. It was too little, too late. The T-38 grazed the roof of the McDonnell building where engineers were working on their very spacecraft. The NASA jet smashed into the courtyard just beyond. Tom and Gene soon reappeared for their landing to the fiery sight of their crashed friends. See and Bassett were both dead.

With the tragic loss of the two GT-9 astronauts, their mission was turned over to Stafford and Cernan. Gemini 8 and Gemini 9 both made it into space in the spring of 1966, but not without their share of difficulties. These difficulties gave NASA planners reason to worry about achieving two of the three major program objectives in the remaining three missions. Specifically, those of docking and conquering the problems of EVA and working in free space.

Most of the people working on the pad had gotten their practices and methods working pretty smoothly by this time. With a few noted problems, our launch schedules seemed manageable and our procedures were performed like clockwork. We had developed a lot of experience and had prepared ourselves for any contingency that we could think of. It was a far cry from our fumbling attempts and the delays we saw during Mercury. There were some fun moments, too.

GT-9 was originally scheduled to launch on May 17 in pursuit of its Agcna target. But the Atlas-Agena vehicle nosed over and crashed into the Atlantic. The mission was scrubbed and the astronauts exited their spacecraft in disgust. A backup target, the ATDA, was available and, on June 1, was launched into orbit.

When Stafford and Cernan entered the white room for their second attempt, they held up two round signs for us to read. One said “We Try Harder.” The other was in German and promised “The Next Time We’ll Do It Better.” In reply, I quickly pointed to the signs the launch crew had put up over the hatches to the spacecraft. The one on the right showed a large magnet and was labeled “Gene’s ATDA Locator”, referring to their rendezvous target. The sign to the left showed a large thundercloud with a lightning bolt shooting out. On it, Tom was quoted inaccurately as saying “Aw, shucks.” That turned out to be prophetic since the launch was soon scrubbed again, this time because of telemetry problems.

Two days later, the astronauts, followed by Deke Slayton, arrived at Pad 19 ready for their third try. As they boarded the elevator, a sign greeted them saying, “Tom and Gene: Notice the down capability for this elevator has been removed. Make this a good one.” Exiting the elevator at the spacecraft level, Slayton handed something to Stafford and he presented it to us. It was a three-foot long match, just in case we had trouble lighting the fuse. Everyone got a good laugh. Tom and Gene paused for an instant to read a sign the backup crew had posted above the spacecraft. “We were kidding before, but we’re not anymore. Get your, uh...selves, into space or we’ll take your place.” John Young was given the command of GT-10. During training with Mike Collins, he had made repeated complaints. Some of the plugs and connections that he worked with were just too difficult to handle with his gloves on. He wanted to take a pair of pliers. NASA wasn’t sold on that idea and voted against it. Still he complained.

On July 18, Young and Collins reported in to the white room. 1 greeted them with a set of four-foot pliers - made from Styrofoam and aluminum foil. John hooted and asked where he should store them. He thought it was hilarious. Many years later he would remind me of them.

“Remember the pliers I wanted to take on GT-10?” he asked. “I smuggled in my own pair in the pocket of my space suit.” John, like me, was never a man to let rules stand in the way of a job that needed to be done. By GT-10 mission’s end, NASA officials breathed easier about rendezvous and docking, but were still concerned about EVA.

In April of 1966, the fifth group of astronauts were selected. There now seemed so many that it was hard to keep up with them. I remember one day we were doing some routine work in the white room. I noticed this red-haired kid snooping around. He looked like he was in high school. I thought he might be some engineering student that someone had brought in.

“Can I help you?” I asked him.

“No, that’s okay. I’m just looking around,” he replied.

Just looking around? Who the hell was this kid?

I tried to be diplomatic. “Young man, may I ask who you work for?”

I was shocked at his answer.

“Oh, I work for NASA. I’m an astronaut. Stu Roosa’s the name.” Pete Conrad had a lot in common with Wally Schirra, not the least of which was his disdain for “experiments.” Flying the spacecraft and successfully completing the mission goals was always number one for these guys. They both felt, and I’m sure many other astronauts agreed with them, that secondary experiments added an undue stress on the completion of primary mission objectives.

I worked closely with Pete during much of his training for Gemini 11. He was not happy at all with the many experiments that had been tacked onto his flight. One day as he sat in the spacecraft during a test, he took a moment to open up one of the experiments. The next thing we knew sparks were shooting out from the little device. Pete was furious. It turned out that a high voltage capacitor was in the package. It was lucky for everyone that he discovered its ability to discharge so vigorously. Once the spacecraft was closed, it would be pressurized with 100% oxygen. A spark in an environment like that would have surely caused a disaster. It illustrated how complex our chain was and how easily it could break. In spaceflight, every little thing had to work as planned. The failure of the smallest link could result in the failure of the mission and even the loss of the crew.

Pete and Dick Gordon were both concerned about all the television equipment they were taking along on GT-11. They figured if they had to take all that stuff with them, it should at least be in color. I tried to break the tension a bit. One afternoon when they slid into the spacecraft for a workout, they found a full-color picture of Batman taped inside.

During another test, late at night, Pete asked me to take the right seat and handle co-pilot duties for him. I had been in both Mercury and Gemini spacecraft and simulators before, but never for such an extended period. It was much easier sliding into a Gemini cockpit than a Mercury. But once you were in there, it was still extremely cramped. You fit into the seat fairly comfortably, with the controls wrapped all around you. Your arms fell easily into position and your legs bent as if in a recliner chair, but you could not stretch out. You could not move your hands very far without bumping into something.

In theory, the command pilot was supposed to be able to fly die spacecraft alone. The reality, however, was that it took two people to handle all the switches and controls. In tests, the hatch doors remained open. When they were closed, your only outside view was through the half-moon shaped window just inches in front of your face. When I think of Frank Borman and Jim Lovell shoehorned into that tiny cabin for two weeks, I don’t envy them their mission at all.

In the last quarter of 1966, Gemini 11 and Gemini 12 flew their missions to end the Gemini program. Successful space-walks on both solved EVA problems that had confounded previous crews. We had done our homework and completed our exercises. With the challenges of docking and space-walking conquered, NASA looked forward to the Apollo program where massive Saturn boosters would put three man crews into space. Their destination would be the moon.