When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008) s01e02 Episode Script
Friends and Rivals
In 1969, a group of astronauts change the world.
They ride the biggest rocket ever built to the moon.
It's the culmination of more than 10 years of space pioneering and a foundation for more than four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.
This is the story of our greatest adventure.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
America has a new president and a seemingly impossible challenge.
"This president must be crazy.
How can we possibly do that in nine years?" We had had a total of 20 minutes' manned space-flight experience.
I was just amazed at the courage of it and almost the arrogance that we could do something like that.
The Mercury missions proved man can fly in space.
In Project Gemini, they'll learn how to fly to the moon.
The flights to the moon were gonna take 10 days.
We had to learn how to work during that whole period.
We had to learn how to live in space.
Could they operate all right in zero gravity? You know, "How do we even get to the moon?" Gemini missions will carry two men -- something NASA has never attempted.
September 17, 1962-- NASA announces a second group of astronauts.
They call themselves the New Nine.
There are nine of us -- four from the air force, three from the navy, and two civilians.
And they were a really good group of people.
Great bunch of guys.
I liked all of them.
We really had a great group.
Many of America's most famous astronauts start out in Project Gemini -- Jim Lovell, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong.
10 Gemini missions are planned, each more challenging and more dangerous than the last.
Throughout this entire process, the risk was constantly escalating on each one of these missions.
So is the competition among the astronauts.
At stake, the ultimate prize -- to be the first man on the moon.
We were all extremely competitive, and so, from a competition standpoint, I mean, we were right in there all the time, you know.
I was bulletproof, invincible.
There's nothing I couldn't do.
Just give me a shot.
Don't tell me I can't do it, 'cause I can do it.
To do what we do, you have to be a little arrogant.
NASA announces the crew for America's first two-man flight into space.
Rookie astronaut John Young.
My wife didn't want me to fly.
She thought I'd get killed.
I didn't think I would.
Flying in space next to Young, Project Mercury veteran Gus Grissom.
My friend.
This great guy.
Very, very great guy.
He and I first spent time together when we were doing survival training down in Panama.
John Young and Gus Grissom -- two of the most perfectly paired crew members that I've ever seen.
They seemed to have a zest for space.
They were kids at heart.
It's almost like they were going off on a joyride there.
To lift the new two-man capsule into space, NASA needs a more powerful rocket.
The air force is developing a new Titan missile.
But adapting it for Gemini missions won't be easy.
One out of every five Titans fails.
An 80% success rate isn't good enough if men are going to ride it into space.
Well, it wasn't very -- It wasn't perfect.
A rocket is like a controlled explosion that is looking for any weakness that it can find to get out.
I remember sitting, watching TV with my mother and father one day when they were gonna show a live launch down at the Cape.
And the thing just barely got off the pad, when it blew up.
Of course, that wasn't exactly a confidence builder for my mother and dad.
Engineers check and recheck every part and install redundant systems throughout the rocket to make it more reliable.
Training simulates every phase of a mission.
You couldn't just go in there and get in a spacecraft and do it.
Whatever you got assigned to do, you did your darndest to do it right.
Finally, NASA launches two rockets that don't explode.
Gus Grissom and John Young ride the next Titan missile into space.
Gemini 3's mission objectives -- test-drive the new rocket and capsule and return to Earth alive.
Thousands of people across the country, at various places, they're all going through this building of the excitement, heading towards the launch, and this examination of conscience as to whether all that should be done has been done and nothing has been forgotten.
It's almost like the Force is with you.
Stage 2 prevalves coming open in five seconds.
T-minus 20 seconds.
Mark.
We were all kind of holding our breath to make sure they got up there and did all the things it was supposed to do.
It was white-knuckle time in mission control.
Anything goes wrong, and Grissom and Young will be killed, with millions of people watching live.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 You think about your procedures you're gonna run.
Frightened? Never thought about it.
2 1.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
We got a roll program.
Roger.
Roll.
Good lift-off.
That was a pretty good launch.
It was a Titan launch, so, you know, it had quite a few G's, going into orbit.
Piece of cake.
It was as close as we could get to perfection.
The launch went perfectly.
The spacecraft performed admirably.
It went swimmingly.
Grissom and Young ride a converted ballistic missile.
For the first time, two Americans fly together in space.
They practice changing altitude and orbit -- critical maneuvers on a trip to the moon.
Waiting for the capsule in the Atlantic, a recovery task force -- 27 ships, 126 aircraft.
And we screwed up on reentry.
When we fired the retro-rockets, we forgot that the Earth rotated under us.
We forgot to put the rotation of the Earth into the equation.
As a result, Gemini 3 splashes down off-target.
We were short.
We were 60 miles short.
When we started, we were 190 miles short, and Gus made it all up but 60 miles of it.
After three orbits of the Earth, waiting to be rescued is the worst part of the mission for Gus Grissom.
He was a little seasick, you know.
I was an old navy guy, so it meant nothing.
I'd been on a destroyer for a year, so nothing made me seasick.
Crowds fill Lower Manhattan to welcome their heroes home.
It was raining and snowing, and we were sitting there in an open car.
As an old Texas boy, I don't think being in the snow is much fun.
But that's what we did.
NASA has less than five years to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
Every Gemini mission will test a critical procedure in the flight plan to get there.
The next big challenge is walking in space -- an extravehicular activity, or EVA.
EVA was a key element that had to be accomplished successfully before we could go on to the moon.
We had to learn about what it's like to get out of a spacecraft, whether it's floating around the Earth or whether it's walking on the moon.
We had to learn how to live in space.
The biggest unknown -- how effective the human body can be when weightless.
NASA engineers devise a way to cheat gravity.
It's called the Vomit Comet -- a specially modified plane that flies in huge arcs.
As it climbs steeply, then drops, the astronauts experience up to 30 seconds of weightlessness.
So far, astronauts have been strapped to the seat.
No one knows what will happen when they try to move around.
Well, we could push off of the back end and actually swim all the way through the length of the airplane.
We took things up to test, and I enjoyed that particular area of training -- the Vomit Comet.
A lot of people got sick doing that.
It was sort of like seasickness squared.
I really didn't look forward to going into the vehicle again.
I said, "I don't need that vehicle.
" Z ero gravity is only one problem.
There are other dangers waiting outside the capsule.
How would man react to being in orbit at 17, 300 miles an hour? Would he get vertigo? Would he become extremely afraid? Would he be extremely uncomfortable out there? Would he be able to work out there? All of these were the unknowns.
The space suit is the astronaut's last line of defense against the extreme conditions in space.
You'd be 250 degrees-plus on the sunny side, and, once the spacecraft rotated and you were in the shade, that you're minus-250 degrees.
Well, the suit had to be designed to work in that kind of environment.
Space is a vacuum.
If the flight suit fails or even tears a little, the difference in pressure would cause the astronaut's blood to boil, killing him instantly.
The suit was designed to keep us alive.
It was risky, and we accepted the risk.
We didn't become astronauts to play it safe.
NASA's plan -- fly two more missions, building to an EVA on Gemini 6.
But nobody at NASA knows a Soviet cosmonaut has already walked in space.
And it shocked a lot of people.
It caught us totally unexpected, and, you know, we were just barely flying in space in our own little capsules.
They weren't even big enough to be called "spaceships".
The news changes everything.
It meant I was gonna have to work my ass off to get it done on the next flight.
I was called over to Chris Kraft, and, basically, he told me the NASA administrator had decided we're going to try to conduct an EVA.
But then he said, "But I want you to do it in secret.
" Okay, stand by for final status check.
The Soviets were still beating us every step of the way, and they didn't want to advertise we were going to do something unless they were absolutely sure that we were capable of accomplishing it.
The man who gets the job is rookie astronaut Ed White.
White will be the first American to leave the capsule and walk in space.
Ed White was -- You know, if we had a Boy Scout in the space program, I think Ed White epitomized what a Boy Scout really is.
He was a good-looking young man, he was very athletic, very intelligent, smart, had a passion for what he was doing.
Ed White was probably what everyone thought an astronaut should be.
White's partner on Gemini 4 is Jim McDivitt.
At NASA, they're known as the Gemini twins.
I knew Ed White for a long time.
We had gone to University of Michigan together.
We lived on the same street.
Our kids knew each other.
We went through test-pilot school in the same class.
Ed and I were very close.
We were extremely close friends.
Gemini 4 will also be America's longest space flight yet -- four days, 62 orbits.
Putting an EVA into any flight for the first time is a bold step, but, you know, that was part of the mission.
In those days, we were taking big steps.
That is a risky business.
If Ed White's EVA is successful, it will move the entire space program closer to the moon.
But many think NASA is moving too fast.
A problem on the EVA could keep the U.
S.
from getting to the moon on Kennedy's schedule.
NASA scrambled around kind of hurriedly and, in my estimation, without a great deal of safety factor, had Ed go EVA on Gemini 4.
I was not in favor of it.
Even at NASA, few people know Gemini 4 is accelerating America's first spacewalk.
Our EVA was very confidential at the time.
We had not announced we were gonna do this, and we were doing all of our training at night, and only a group of maybe 30 or 40 people even knew we were gonna try it.
NASA announces the first American spacewalk just a few days before the launch of Gemini 4.
Launch time is a very critical time.
Everybody's keyed up.
Everybody's got to do a good job.
The hardware's got to work.
Walking out was -- My first thought was, "My God, this is just like it's on television.
" But you, you know, you've got your mind on other things.
I was probably going over the launch things I had to do, and you're not thinking about girls and comic strips.
You know, you're -- It's a business.
We have a roll program initiated.
8.
5 G's, you're really being pushed into the seat.
And, all of a sudden, it stops, and you're floating.
It's a lot of fun.
The crew went through the preparation process.
They reported we were ready.
Gemini 4.
I had a tracking station make sure that all of the safety criteria had been met and this was now okay to open up the hatch.
Okay, we're giving a "go" for your EVA at this time.
Okay.
Roger.
Flight, let's go, okay? After we got the hatch open, Ed stood up in the seat and got ready to go, and -- and we cleared him to go.
And then he took and pushed off on the seat.
My feet are out.
I think I'm dragging a little bit, so I don't want to fire the gun yet.
Okay, I'm separating from the spacecraft.
Ed White is flying at 17,000 miles per hour, 200 miles above the Earth.
Okay, I'm out.
If the space suit fails, the difference in pressure will kill him instantly.
If the lifeline fails, he'll literally be lost in space.
The only thing to do would be to disconnect him and let him float around out there.
I mean, you know, these are things that's in everybody's mind.
We didn't have a plan.
We didn't have a checklist on how you kill your best friend.
As White floats in space, a glove drifts out of the capsule.
I don't even know whose glove it was.
I don't know whether it was his or mine.
Today those pictures are -- are classic.
They're still overpowering today to realize, number one, it's been done and that we did it.
It blew me away.
Ed White floats in space for 36 minutes but has to be inside the capsule before day turns to night.
We told him to get back in the spacecraft, and he sort of didn't hear us.
He didn't really want to recognize, okay, that the EVA's over, time to get back in the spacecraft.
He was very reluctant to get back in.
He was having a good time out there.
I would have been reluctant to get back in, too.
I told him to get the hell back in the spacecraft, 'cause he was staying out too long.
He was gonna be out in the dark.
That's the only time I've ever spoken without being spoken to, into space.
The EVA is NASA's riskiest mission yet and a critical part of any flight to the moon.
I don't know if you can read me now, but does that parachute look great! Ed White's spacewalk will always be one of the genuine highlights of the space program.
Gemini 4 propels the space program a giant leap closer to the moon -- at least, until the next EVA.
After the first U.
S.
spacewalk, Project Gemini tackles one of the most difficult procedures in the flight plan to the moon.
Probes show it's possible to land on the lunar surface, but the moonwalkers will need to fly the lunar lander back to their orbiting capsule for the voyage home.
It's called "rendezvous".
It will demand the most precise flying of any mission yet.
Astronauts for Gemini 7 are Commander Frank Borman and Pilot Jim Lovell.
One of the things that we had to test out in Gemini was the ability to rendezvous with another vehicle.
They would start talking about using Gemini 7 as a target for Gemini 6.
Two spacecraft -- Gemini 6 and 7-- must find each other in orbit and fly just inches apart.
And in order to do that, we would have to have two Titans launch, one right after the other, on time.
And we said, "Okay, we'll give it a try.
" Rendezvous was absolutely critical.
It involved a whole lot of work, and nobody had done it before.
The main thing that I think everyone that was associated with any mission wanted to do was to do it well.
4 3 2 1 0.
Ignition.
Engines start.
We have a lift-off.
Gemini 7 blasts off first.
- We're on our way, Frank.
- Yep.
Stand by for stages.
Roger.
Staging.
Rocket engines blasting off cause massive destruction.
NASA crews have to rebuild the launchpad for Gemini 6 in just three days -- a job that usually takes weeks.
And you can tell him that the pad-preparation schedule is going very well.
The pad-preparation schedule for Gemini 6 is going real well.
Gemini 6 rolls out to the pad as Gemini 7 waits in space.
Borman and Lovell will spend 14 days in orbit -- America's longest mission -- to study the effects of long-term weightlessness.
The maximum time to go to the moon would be about two weeks.
A lot of the medical community said that there might be some body functions that don't perform.
And nobody had done that, to that date.
And so I launched with probes in my head.
They even wanted to put a probe in an artery.
I drew the line on that, and told them, no, I didn't think we'd do that this time.
As NASA prepares to launch Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford in Gemini 6, another test rocket is fired in the direction of Gemini 7.
Ignition.
We did that because the Defense Department was interested in tracking Soviet missiles.
Borman and Lovell test military technology to track a missile from space.
Every rocket has a signature that you can tell one rocket from a different type of a vehicle.
And we had a device on board that was able to take that signature.
It was kind of a little bit of apprehension to see this thing come towards you.
Back on the ground, Pad 19 is ready to launch Gemini 6.
The word from the Cape is, we are "go.
" The prime pilots for the Gemini 6 flight, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, are now on their way to Launch Complex 19 to board their spacecraft.
T-minus 48, and all still going well with our Gemini 6 countdown here at Launch Complex 19.
We will have ignition at zero.
And some three seconds after ignition, the launch vehicle will lift off on the start of the Gemini 6 flight.
They've gone through a complete checklist once again, and we are counting.
2 to go.
They're cleared for takeoff.
Roger.
Adios.
Minus 5 4 3 2 1.
Ignition.
Gemini 6.
pressure is lowering slowly.
Roger, Gemini 6.
Monitor and take pressures.
Oxidizing pressure is down to about 32.
A faulty valve causes the engine to shut down just seconds before the rocket would have exploded.
Okay, we're just sitting here breathing.
Here's two guys up there, going through this trauma.
We put the Titan on the pad and start the engine, and the damn thing shut down.
Stafford and Schirra are lucky to walk away.
Gemini 7, Houston.
We were wondering if you saw the ignition at the Cape.
We were in perfect position, but we never saw the ignition.
We were waiting for the lift-off.
With Gemini 7 waiting in space, Gemini 6 has the smallest launch window of any NASA flight.
Then, within three days, we fixed that issue, fixed that problem, and launched again.
Gemini 6, you are go.
- You hear the man.
Go.
- Go.
3 2 1.
Ignition.
Engine start.
We've got a real lift-off.
The clock is running.
Roll complete.
Roger.
Cabin pressure sealed at 5.
5.
50 seconds.
Okay, their orbit is 87 by 140.
From a lower orbit, Gemini 6 is catching up to Gemini 7.
How are the 7 boys doing? Did they go over a while ago? They sure did.
They're about five minutes ahead of you.
Roger.
But when Gemini 6 came up to rendezvous, we saw them coming up from below.
There's nothing more the ground crew can do.
The pilots are now in complete control.
We could have bumped each other.
One of the things we want to make sure was "Could you slow down?" We didn't want to have a device where we misjudged our velocities and then slammed into each other.
300 feet.
It was still dark out, but we could see the jets firing from Gemini 6.
180 feet.
You're going 17,000 miles an hour.
- You're 200 miles up.
- 120 feet.
The two capsules are attempting to fly in formation just inches apart.
No two spacecraft have ever been this close.
Ask them what their range is now.
About 20 feet.
We're in formation with 7.
Everything is "go" here.
Roger.
Congratulations.
Excellent.
Thank you.
It'll be a lot of fun.
They just came up and stopped, and there we were, together -- you know, nose to nose, side to side.
It was a really fine sight.
We could see through the windows.
We could see Tom and Wally quite well.
Gemini 7, this is 6.
If you can hold it in the yaw for just a little while, we'll try to get in real close and try to get all those close shots.
The two pilots fly their capsules in tight formation for 270 minutes -- three orbits of the Earth.
The control system on Gemini was so good that you could fly within six inches of one another without bothering anything.
Rendezvous demonstrates how far the space program has come in just four years.
And then it's over.
Gemini 6 fires its thrusters and heads home.
Lovell and Borman are alone in space again.
Their remaining task -- complete the two-week mission, proving astronauts can survive a trip to the moon.
Tom and Wally spent a total of 19 hours in space.
I would have gladly traded rides with them at that point.
By the time they left, the interior of Gemini 7 was getting to be, you know the odors were starting to float around.
And nine days had gone by before Frank looked at me and said, "Jim, I think this is it.
" He said, "I've got to go.
" I said, "Can't you wait five more days?" The last three days were bad.
It's NASA's longest mission in space -- more than enough time for a round-trip flight to the moon.
Fortunately, Jim Lovell kept his wonderful sense of humor up, and it was, "No problem.
No problem at all.
" We were very happy when we got back down on the carrier.
Gemini 7 flies nearly 6 million miles in 14 days.
In those two weeks, the sun rises and sets on Lovell and Borman more than 400 times.
It was very difficult to walk.
My legs hadn't been used for two weeks, and I actually had to command my legs, "Left, right, left, right," to walk down the deck of the carrier.
We learned one hell of a lot about how to do rendezvous.
With each Gemini flight, NASA acquires another skill necessary to reach the moon.
One last critical maneuver remains -- docking -- two craft linking together in space.
The first crew to attempt it are Dave Scott and Commander Neil Armstrong.
Rendezvous, docking, and operating combined spacecraft was a key element of the Apollo strategy.
We wanted to prove that ability on Gemini 8.
6 5 4 3 2 1.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
Armstrong will rendezvous then dock their capsule with an unmanned Agena target vehicle 160 miles above the Earth.
It was a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong and make the approach or the docking a dicey situation.
After a successful docking, the combination began a slow roll.
The roll rate became uncomfortably high, and we were unable to determine the cause of the problem.
We disconnected our spacecraft from the Agena.
Our roll rate continued to accelerate.
A thruster is stuck, spinning the capsule out of control.
Our orbit was primarily over ocean areas, out of range of flight controllers at tracking stations.
We were on our own.
When the roll rate increased to more than 400 degrees per second, our vision was beginning to degrade.
To regain control, Armstrong counters with a different set of rockets.
Neil Armstrong had to power up the reentry control system in the Gemini spacecraft.
Fortunately, that solved the problem.
Armstrong steadies the spacecraft but burns fuel he needs for reentry, triggering an immediate abort of the mission.
They have to settle for a backup landing site, far from recovery efforts already deployed in the Atlantic.
We were obliged to land at the next-closest landing area, which was near the Pacific island of Okinawa.
That remains as the record for the furthest distance from the original planned landing site.
Gemini 8 accomplishes its primary mission objective.
The secondary objective -- an extended EVA -- is handed off to Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan on Gemini 9.
We were on the fast track to get to Apollo.
We were flying a Gemini flight every six weeks.
There are four Gemini missions left.
The moon now seems within reach.
Things changed when we got to Gemini 9.
To go to the moon, astronauts have to learn to work in the vacuum of space.
Engineers scramble to devise new training techniques, but nobody really knows what working in weightlessness will be like.
Gemini 9 will attempt the longest spacewalk yet.
We only had 20 minutes of space-flight experience, and that was Ed White.
Went out with a little gun, was able to propel himself around space, and get back in without a great deal of difficulty.
He gave us a sense of "Well, it looked kind of easy, frankly.
" We had a fairly complicated set of things to do on Gemini 9.
This is only our second walk in space, and we know very little about what we're gonna encounter.
This is a dangerous mission.
Gene Cernan has a lot of work to do on NASA's most ambitious spacewalk.
Gemini 9 was my first flight.
I would have done anything I was asked to do.
I knew I was good enough to do it.
Gemini 9.
We open the hatch.
Tom Stafford held my feet down so I wouldn't just float out.
And I just got the top half of my body out.
I stuck my head out into truly a different world, if you will.
And then my job was to crawl hand over hand to get back to the back of the spacecraft.
Cernan has to flight-test a new jetpack mounted in the rear of the capsule.
But just getting there is hard work.
I had nothing really to hold on to except a couple handlebars.
Okay, Tom, how's it look down there? The vacuum of space offers no resistance.
Even simple tasks are a massive struggle.
You are the most helpless creature in the world on the end of a string, floating in zero gravity in space.
Suddenly realizing my visor was getting fogged up.
The visor fogged up.
Here he was, in effect, blind.
It was obvious that he was in trouble.
And he was struggling like the devil to hold his location.
My heart rate was running 140, 150, 160-- at times, 170.
It was scary to us, because you could hear this labored breathing -- you know, 20% past your max heart rate.
Doctors at mission control are seriously concerned he'll lose consciousness and not make it back to the capsule.
I couldn't determine the degree of the difficulties that he was in up there.
- Gemini 9.
- Go ahead, 9.
Okay, he's fogging real bad.
Cernan finally gets to the jetpack and straps it on.
But he's too exhausted to fly it.
It was time to basically call the EVA off.
I'm giving it a no-go.
It was a nightmare getting back in the spacecraft.
The EVA is a failure.
If a physically fit astronaut can't work in space, nobody's going to the moon.
I was disappointed.
I didn't get the job done.
I let my colleagues down.
I was disappointed.
I don't think I'd like to do this again.
Would you? Two more Gemini missions attempt space walks.
Both fail for the same reason.
NASA modifies the space suit and training methods.
A rookie astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, will try again on Gemini 12.
Buzz Aldrin was the perfect guy for that EVA because he had approached it in almost a textbook fashion.
An avid deep-sea diver, Aldrin practices for the next EVA underwater to simulate a weightless environment.
It was just a very natural thing to maneuver slowly from one position to another.
The tools, the techniques, the training -- he made sure they got all put together in this new environment of neutral buoyancy training.
He trained in there, he'd come back up, he'd say what he had learned, what needed to be done differently.
You had the divers, you had the instructors watching this thing.
And, all of a sudden, these things made sense to us.
I had sufficiently rehearsed the different parts of it so that I felt quite confident that everything I had to do would leave me in a very positive, control condition.
NASA has one more chance to get it right.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
Aldrin's first mission would be Gemini's last.
Aldrin conducts three EVAs.
He spends more than five hours walking in space.
Buzz learned not to fight zero gravity but to use zero gravity to his advantage.
I actually felt a little guilty about doing such simple tasks in the back of the spacecraft.
He never got overheated.
His heart rate never went up because he learned to take it easy, he had the proper tools, he had the proper footholds, and we leaned a lot about how we could proceed in the future.
From that day on through to the current day, we have never had a major problem associated with the conduct of an EVA.
Project Gemini ends in triumph.
The stage is set for our greatest adventure.
Gemini was an unsung hero in terms of the readiness of the American space program to go do Apollo in many, many ways.
We had learned the new technologies of space.
We had learned to work with computers.
We had learned to navigate.
We had learned to dock.
Perhaps the most important way was to create the team of people, the band of brothers, that were ready to go do Apollo when the time came.
Ignition.
Engine start.
We've got a real lift-off.
By the time we finished Gemini program, we had a solid foundation in technology, we had the solid foundation in a team, and we had the confidence to use the team and the technology now to take the step -- go to the moon.
They ride the biggest rocket ever built to the moon.
It's the culmination of more than 10 years of space pioneering and a foundation for more than four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.
This is the story of our greatest adventure.
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
America has a new president and a seemingly impossible challenge.
"This president must be crazy.
How can we possibly do that in nine years?" We had had a total of 20 minutes' manned space-flight experience.
I was just amazed at the courage of it and almost the arrogance that we could do something like that.
The Mercury missions proved man can fly in space.
In Project Gemini, they'll learn how to fly to the moon.
The flights to the moon were gonna take 10 days.
We had to learn how to work during that whole period.
We had to learn how to live in space.
Could they operate all right in zero gravity? You know, "How do we even get to the moon?" Gemini missions will carry two men -- something NASA has never attempted.
September 17, 1962-- NASA announces a second group of astronauts.
They call themselves the New Nine.
There are nine of us -- four from the air force, three from the navy, and two civilians.
And they were a really good group of people.
Great bunch of guys.
I liked all of them.
We really had a great group.
Many of America's most famous astronauts start out in Project Gemini -- Jim Lovell, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong.
10 Gemini missions are planned, each more challenging and more dangerous than the last.
Throughout this entire process, the risk was constantly escalating on each one of these missions.
So is the competition among the astronauts.
At stake, the ultimate prize -- to be the first man on the moon.
We were all extremely competitive, and so, from a competition standpoint, I mean, we were right in there all the time, you know.
I was bulletproof, invincible.
There's nothing I couldn't do.
Just give me a shot.
Don't tell me I can't do it, 'cause I can do it.
To do what we do, you have to be a little arrogant.
NASA announces the crew for America's first two-man flight into space.
Rookie astronaut John Young.
My wife didn't want me to fly.
She thought I'd get killed.
I didn't think I would.
Flying in space next to Young, Project Mercury veteran Gus Grissom.
My friend.
This great guy.
Very, very great guy.
He and I first spent time together when we were doing survival training down in Panama.
John Young and Gus Grissom -- two of the most perfectly paired crew members that I've ever seen.
They seemed to have a zest for space.
They were kids at heart.
It's almost like they were going off on a joyride there.
To lift the new two-man capsule into space, NASA needs a more powerful rocket.
The air force is developing a new Titan missile.
But adapting it for Gemini missions won't be easy.
One out of every five Titans fails.
An 80% success rate isn't good enough if men are going to ride it into space.
Well, it wasn't very -- It wasn't perfect.
A rocket is like a controlled explosion that is looking for any weakness that it can find to get out.
I remember sitting, watching TV with my mother and father one day when they were gonna show a live launch down at the Cape.
And the thing just barely got off the pad, when it blew up.
Of course, that wasn't exactly a confidence builder for my mother and dad.
Engineers check and recheck every part and install redundant systems throughout the rocket to make it more reliable.
Training simulates every phase of a mission.
You couldn't just go in there and get in a spacecraft and do it.
Whatever you got assigned to do, you did your darndest to do it right.
Finally, NASA launches two rockets that don't explode.
Gus Grissom and John Young ride the next Titan missile into space.
Gemini 3's mission objectives -- test-drive the new rocket and capsule and return to Earth alive.
Thousands of people across the country, at various places, they're all going through this building of the excitement, heading towards the launch, and this examination of conscience as to whether all that should be done has been done and nothing has been forgotten.
It's almost like the Force is with you.
Stage 2 prevalves coming open in five seconds.
T-minus 20 seconds.
Mark.
We were all kind of holding our breath to make sure they got up there and did all the things it was supposed to do.
It was white-knuckle time in mission control.
Anything goes wrong, and Grissom and Young will be killed, with millions of people watching live.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 You think about your procedures you're gonna run.
Frightened? Never thought about it.
2 1.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
We got a roll program.
Roger.
Roll.
Good lift-off.
That was a pretty good launch.
It was a Titan launch, so, you know, it had quite a few G's, going into orbit.
Piece of cake.
It was as close as we could get to perfection.
The launch went perfectly.
The spacecraft performed admirably.
It went swimmingly.
Grissom and Young ride a converted ballistic missile.
For the first time, two Americans fly together in space.
They practice changing altitude and orbit -- critical maneuvers on a trip to the moon.
Waiting for the capsule in the Atlantic, a recovery task force -- 27 ships, 126 aircraft.
And we screwed up on reentry.
When we fired the retro-rockets, we forgot that the Earth rotated under us.
We forgot to put the rotation of the Earth into the equation.
As a result, Gemini 3 splashes down off-target.
We were short.
We were 60 miles short.
When we started, we were 190 miles short, and Gus made it all up but 60 miles of it.
After three orbits of the Earth, waiting to be rescued is the worst part of the mission for Gus Grissom.
He was a little seasick, you know.
I was an old navy guy, so it meant nothing.
I'd been on a destroyer for a year, so nothing made me seasick.
Crowds fill Lower Manhattan to welcome their heroes home.
It was raining and snowing, and we were sitting there in an open car.
As an old Texas boy, I don't think being in the snow is much fun.
But that's what we did.
NASA has less than five years to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
Every Gemini mission will test a critical procedure in the flight plan to get there.
The next big challenge is walking in space -- an extravehicular activity, or EVA.
EVA was a key element that had to be accomplished successfully before we could go on to the moon.
We had to learn about what it's like to get out of a spacecraft, whether it's floating around the Earth or whether it's walking on the moon.
We had to learn how to live in space.
The biggest unknown -- how effective the human body can be when weightless.
NASA engineers devise a way to cheat gravity.
It's called the Vomit Comet -- a specially modified plane that flies in huge arcs.
As it climbs steeply, then drops, the astronauts experience up to 30 seconds of weightlessness.
So far, astronauts have been strapped to the seat.
No one knows what will happen when they try to move around.
Well, we could push off of the back end and actually swim all the way through the length of the airplane.
We took things up to test, and I enjoyed that particular area of training -- the Vomit Comet.
A lot of people got sick doing that.
It was sort of like seasickness squared.
I really didn't look forward to going into the vehicle again.
I said, "I don't need that vehicle.
" Z ero gravity is only one problem.
There are other dangers waiting outside the capsule.
How would man react to being in orbit at 17, 300 miles an hour? Would he get vertigo? Would he become extremely afraid? Would he be extremely uncomfortable out there? Would he be able to work out there? All of these were the unknowns.
The space suit is the astronaut's last line of defense against the extreme conditions in space.
You'd be 250 degrees-plus on the sunny side, and, once the spacecraft rotated and you were in the shade, that you're minus-250 degrees.
Well, the suit had to be designed to work in that kind of environment.
Space is a vacuum.
If the flight suit fails or even tears a little, the difference in pressure would cause the astronaut's blood to boil, killing him instantly.
The suit was designed to keep us alive.
It was risky, and we accepted the risk.
We didn't become astronauts to play it safe.
NASA's plan -- fly two more missions, building to an EVA on Gemini 6.
But nobody at NASA knows a Soviet cosmonaut has already walked in space.
And it shocked a lot of people.
It caught us totally unexpected, and, you know, we were just barely flying in space in our own little capsules.
They weren't even big enough to be called "spaceships".
The news changes everything.
It meant I was gonna have to work my ass off to get it done on the next flight.
I was called over to Chris Kraft, and, basically, he told me the NASA administrator had decided we're going to try to conduct an EVA.
But then he said, "But I want you to do it in secret.
" Okay, stand by for final status check.
The Soviets were still beating us every step of the way, and they didn't want to advertise we were going to do something unless they were absolutely sure that we were capable of accomplishing it.
The man who gets the job is rookie astronaut Ed White.
White will be the first American to leave the capsule and walk in space.
Ed White was -- You know, if we had a Boy Scout in the space program, I think Ed White epitomized what a Boy Scout really is.
He was a good-looking young man, he was very athletic, very intelligent, smart, had a passion for what he was doing.
Ed White was probably what everyone thought an astronaut should be.
White's partner on Gemini 4 is Jim McDivitt.
At NASA, they're known as the Gemini twins.
I knew Ed White for a long time.
We had gone to University of Michigan together.
We lived on the same street.
Our kids knew each other.
We went through test-pilot school in the same class.
Ed and I were very close.
We were extremely close friends.
Gemini 4 will also be America's longest space flight yet -- four days, 62 orbits.
Putting an EVA into any flight for the first time is a bold step, but, you know, that was part of the mission.
In those days, we were taking big steps.
That is a risky business.
If Ed White's EVA is successful, it will move the entire space program closer to the moon.
But many think NASA is moving too fast.
A problem on the EVA could keep the U.
S.
from getting to the moon on Kennedy's schedule.
NASA scrambled around kind of hurriedly and, in my estimation, without a great deal of safety factor, had Ed go EVA on Gemini 4.
I was not in favor of it.
Even at NASA, few people know Gemini 4 is accelerating America's first spacewalk.
Our EVA was very confidential at the time.
We had not announced we were gonna do this, and we were doing all of our training at night, and only a group of maybe 30 or 40 people even knew we were gonna try it.
NASA announces the first American spacewalk just a few days before the launch of Gemini 4.
Launch time is a very critical time.
Everybody's keyed up.
Everybody's got to do a good job.
The hardware's got to work.
Walking out was -- My first thought was, "My God, this is just like it's on television.
" But you, you know, you've got your mind on other things.
I was probably going over the launch things I had to do, and you're not thinking about girls and comic strips.
You know, you're -- It's a business.
We have a roll program initiated.
8.
5 G's, you're really being pushed into the seat.
And, all of a sudden, it stops, and you're floating.
It's a lot of fun.
The crew went through the preparation process.
They reported we were ready.
Gemini 4.
I had a tracking station make sure that all of the safety criteria had been met and this was now okay to open up the hatch.
Okay, we're giving a "go" for your EVA at this time.
Okay.
Roger.
Flight, let's go, okay? After we got the hatch open, Ed stood up in the seat and got ready to go, and -- and we cleared him to go.
And then he took and pushed off on the seat.
My feet are out.
I think I'm dragging a little bit, so I don't want to fire the gun yet.
Okay, I'm separating from the spacecraft.
Ed White is flying at 17,000 miles per hour, 200 miles above the Earth.
Okay, I'm out.
If the space suit fails, the difference in pressure will kill him instantly.
If the lifeline fails, he'll literally be lost in space.
The only thing to do would be to disconnect him and let him float around out there.
I mean, you know, these are things that's in everybody's mind.
We didn't have a plan.
We didn't have a checklist on how you kill your best friend.
As White floats in space, a glove drifts out of the capsule.
I don't even know whose glove it was.
I don't know whether it was his or mine.
Today those pictures are -- are classic.
They're still overpowering today to realize, number one, it's been done and that we did it.
It blew me away.
Ed White floats in space for 36 minutes but has to be inside the capsule before day turns to night.
We told him to get back in the spacecraft, and he sort of didn't hear us.
He didn't really want to recognize, okay, that the EVA's over, time to get back in the spacecraft.
He was very reluctant to get back in.
He was having a good time out there.
I would have been reluctant to get back in, too.
I told him to get the hell back in the spacecraft, 'cause he was staying out too long.
He was gonna be out in the dark.
That's the only time I've ever spoken without being spoken to, into space.
The EVA is NASA's riskiest mission yet and a critical part of any flight to the moon.
I don't know if you can read me now, but does that parachute look great! Ed White's spacewalk will always be one of the genuine highlights of the space program.
Gemini 4 propels the space program a giant leap closer to the moon -- at least, until the next EVA.
After the first U.
S.
spacewalk, Project Gemini tackles one of the most difficult procedures in the flight plan to the moon.
Probes show it's possible to land on the lunar surface, but the moonwalkers will need to fly the lunar lander back to their orbiting capsule for the voyage home.
It's called "rendezvous".
It will demand the most precise flying of any mission yet.
Astronauts for Gemini 7 are Commander Frank Borman and Pilot Jim Lovell.
One of the things that we had to test out in Gemini was the ability to rendezvous with another vehicle.
They would start talking about using Gemini 7 as a target for Gemini 6.
Two spacecraft -- Gemini 6 and 7-- must find each other in orbit and fly just inches apart.
And in order to do that, we would have to have two Titans launch, one right after the other, on time.
And we said, "Okay, we'll give it a try.
" Rendezvous was absolutely critical.
It involved a whole lot of work, and nobody had done it before.
The main thing that I think everyone that was associated with any mission wanted to do was to do it well.
4 3 2 1 0.
Ignition.
Engines start.
We have a lift-off.
Gemini 7 blasts off first.
- We're on our way, Frank.
- Yep.
Stand by for stages.
Roger.
Staging.
Rocket engines blasting off cause massive destruction.
NASA crews have to rebuild the launchpad for Gemini 6 in just three days -- a job that usually takes weeks.
And you can tell him that the pad-preparation schedule is going very well.
The pad-preparation schedule for Gemini 6 is going real well.
Gemini 6 rolls out to the pad as Gemini 7 waits in space.
Borman and Lovell will spend 14 days in orbit -- America's longest mission -- to study the effects of long-term weightlessness.
The maximum time to go to the moon would be about two weeks.
A lot of the medical community said that there might be some body functions that don't perform.
And nobody had done that, to that date.
And so I launched with probes in my head.
They even wanted to put a probe in an artery.
I drew the line on that, and told them, no, I didn't think we'd do that this time.
As NASA prepares to launch Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford in Gemini 6, another test rocket is fired in the direction of Gemini 7.
Ignition.
We did that because the Defense Department was interested in tracking Soviet missiles.
Borman and Lovell test military technology to track a missile from space.
Every rocket has a signature that you can tell one rocket from a different type of a vehicle.
And we had a device on board that was able to take that signature.
It was kind of a little bit of apprehension to see this thing come towards you.
Back on the ground, Pad 19 is ready to launch Gemini 6.
The word from the Cape is, we are "go.
" The prime pilots for the Gemini 6 flight, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, are now on their way to Launch Complex 19 to board their spacecraft.
T-minus 48, and all still going well with our Gemini 6 countdown here at Launch Complex 19.
We will have ignition at zero.
And some three seconds after ignition, the launch vehicle will lift off on the start of the Gemini 6 flight.
They've gone through a complete checklist once again, and we are counting.
2 to go.
They're cleared for takeoff.
Roger.
Adios.
Minus 5 4 3 2 1.
Ignition.
Gemini 6.
pressure is lowering slowly.
Roger, Gemini 6.
Monitor and take pressures.
Oxidizing pressure is down to about 32.
A faulty valve causes the engine to shut down just seconds before the rocket would have exploded.
Okay, we're just sitting here breathing.
Here's two guys up there, going through this trauma.
We put the Titan on the pad and start the engine, and the damn thing shut down.
Stafford and Schirra are lucky to walk away.
Gemini 7, Houston.
We were wondering if you saw the ignition at the Cape.
We were in perfect position, but we never saw the ignition.
We were waiting for the lift-off.
With Gemini 7 waiting in space, Gemini 6 has the smallest launch window of any NASA flight.
Then, within three days, we fixed that issue, fixed that problem, and launched again.
Gemini 6, you are go.
- You hear the man.
Go.
- Go.
3 2 1.
Ignition.
Engine start.
We've got a real lift-off.
The clock is running.
Roll complete.
Roger.
Cabin pressure sealed at 5.
5.
50 seconds.
Okay, their orbit is 87 by 140.
From a lower orbit, Gemini 6 is catching up to Gemini 7.
How are the 7 boys doing? Did they go over a while ago? They sure did.
They're about five minutes ahead of you.
Roger.
But when Gemini 6 came up to rendezvous, we saw them coming up from below.
There's nothing more the ground crew can do.
The pilots are now in complete control.
We could have bumped each other.
One of the things we want to make sure was "Could you slow down?" We didn't want to have a device where we misjudged our velocities and then slammed into each other.
300 feet.
It was still dark out, but we could see the jets firing from Gemini 6.
180 feet.
You're going 17,000 miles an hour.
- You're 200 miles up.
- 120 feet.
The two capsules are attempting to fly in formation just inches apart.
No two spacecraft have ever been this close.
Ask them what their range is now.
About 20 feet.
We're in formation with 7.
Everything is "go" here.
Roger.
Congratulations.
Excellent.
Thank you.
It'll be a lot of fun.
They just came up and stopped, and there we were, together -- you know, nose to nose, side to side.
It was a really fine sight.
We could see through the windows.
We could see Tom and Wally quite well.
Gemini 7, this is 6.
If you can hold it in the yaw for just a little while, we'll try to get in real close and try to get all those close shots.
The two pilots fly their capsules in tight formation for 270 minutes -- three orbits of the Earth.
The control system on Gemini was so good that you could fly within six inches of one another without bothering anything.
Rendezvous demonstrates how far the space program has come in just four years.
And then it's over.
Gemini 6 fires its thrusters and heads home.
Lovell and Borman are alone in space again.
Their remaining task -- complete the two-week mission, proving astronauts can survive a trip to the moon.
Tom and Wally spent a total of 19 hours in space.
I would have gladly traded rides with them at that point.
By the time they left, the interior of Gemini 7 was getting to be, you know the odors were starting to float around.
And nine days had gone by before Frank looked at me and said, "Jim, I think this is it.
" He said, "I've got to go.
" I said, "Can't you wait five more days?" The last three days were bad.
It's NASA's longest mission in space -- more than enough time for a round-trip flight to the moon.
Fortunately, Jim Lovell kept his wonderful sense of humor up, and it was, "No problem.
No problem at all.
" We were very happy when we got back down on the carrier.
Gemini 7 flies nearly 6 million miles in 14 days.
In those two weeks, the sun rises and sets on Lovell and Borman more than 400 times.
It was very difficult to walk.
My legs hadn't been used for two weeks, and I actually had to command my legs, "Left, right, left, right," to walk down the deck of the carrier.
We learned one hell of a lot about how to do rendezvous.
With each Gemini flight, NASA acquires another skill necessary to reach the moon.
One last critical maneuver remains -- docking -- two craft linking together in space.
The first crew to attempt it are Dave Scott and Commander Neil Armstrong.
Rendezvous, docking, and operating combined spacecraft was a key element of the Apollo strategy.
We wanted to prove that ability on Gemini 8.
6 5 4 3 2 1.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
Armstrong will rendezvous then dock their capsule with an unmanned Agena target vehicle 160 miles above the Earth.
It was a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong and make the approach or the docking a dicey situation.
After a successful docking, the combination began a slow roll.
The roll rate became uncomfortably high, and we were unable to determine the cause of the problem.
We disconnected our spacecraft from the Agena.
Our roll rate continued to accelerate.
A thruster is stuck, spinning the capsule out of control.
Our orbit was primarily over ocean areas, out of range of flight controllers at tracking stations.
We were on our own.
When the roll rate increased to more than 400 degrees per second, our vision was beginning to degrade.
To regain control, Armstrong counters with a different set of rockets.
Neil Armstrong had to power up the reentry control system in the Gemini spacecraft.
Fortunately, that solved the problem.
Armstrong steadies the spacecraft but burns fuel he needs for reentry, triggering an immediate abort of the mission.
They have to settle for a backup landing site, far from recovery efforts already deployed in the Atlantic.
We were obliged to land at the next-closest landing area, which was near the Pacific island of Okinawa.
That remains as the record for the furthest distance from the original planned landing site.
Gemini 8 accomplishes its primary mission objective.
The secondary objective -- an extended EVA -- is handed off to Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan on Gemini 9.
We were on the fast track to get to Apollo.
We were flying a Gemini flight every six weeks.
There are four Gemini missions left.
The moon now seems within reach.
Things changed when we got to Gemini 9.
To go to the moon, astronauts have to learn to work in the vacuum of space.
Engineers scramble to devise new training techniques, but nobody really knows what working in weightlessness will be like.
Gemini 9 will attempt the longest spacewalk yet.
We only had 20 minutes of space-flight experience, and that was Ed White.
Went out with a little gun, was able to propel himself around space, and get back in without a great deal of difficulty.
He gave us a sense of "Well, it looked kind of easy, frankly.
" We had a fairly complicated set of things to do on Gemini 9.
This is only our second walk in space, and we know very little about what we're gonna encounter.
This is a dangerous mission.
Gene Cernan has a lot of work to do on NASA's most ambitious spacewalk.
Gemini 9 was my first flight.
I would have done anything I was asked to do.
I knew I was good enough to do it.
Gemini 9.
We open the hatch.
Tom Stafford held my feet down so I wouldn't just float out.
And I just got the top half of my body out.
I stuck my head out into truly a different world, if you will.
And then my job was to crawl hand over hand to get back to the back of the spacecraft.
Cernan has to flight-test a new jetpack mounted in the rear of the capsule.
But just getting there is hard work.
I had nothing really to hold on to except a couple handlebars.
Okay, Tom, how's it look down there? The vacuum of space offers no resistance.
Even simple tasks are a massive struggle.
You are the most helpless creature in the world on the end of a string, floating in zero gravity in space.
Suddenly realizing my visor was getting fogged up.
The visor fogged up.
Here he was, in effect, blind.
It was obvious that he was in trouble.
And he was struggling like the devil to hold his location.
My heart rate was running 140, 150, 160-- at times, 170.
It was scary to us, because you could hear this labored breathing -- you know, 20% past your max heart rate.
Doctors at mission control are seriously concerned he'll lose consciousness and not make it back to the capsule.
I couldn't determine the degree of the difficulties that he was in up there.
- Gemini 9.
- Go ahead, 9.
Okay, he's fogging real bad.
Cernan finally gets to the jetpack and straps it on.
But he's too exhausted to fly it.
It was time to basically call the EVA off.
I'm giving it a no-go.
It was a nightmare getting back in the spacecraft.
The EVA is a failure.
If a physically fit astronaut can't work in space, nobody's going to the moon.
I was disappointed.
I didn't get the job done.
I let my colleagues down.
I was disappointed.
I don't think I'd like to do this again.
Would you? Two more Gemini missions attempt space walks.
Both fail for the same reason.
NASA modifies the space suit and training methods.
A rookie astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, will try again on Gemini 12.
Buzz Aldrin was the perfect guy for that EVA because he had approached it in almost a textbook fashion.
An avid deep-sea diver, Aldrin practices for the next EVA underwater to simulate a weightless environment.
It was just a very natural thing to maneuver slowly from one position to another.
The tools, the techniques, the training -- he made sure they got all put together in this new environment of neutral buoyancy training.
He trained in there, he'd come back up, he'd say what he had learned, what needed to be done differently.
You had the divers, you had the instructors watching this thing.
And, all of a sudden, these things made sense to us.
I had sufficiently rehearsed the different parts of it so that I felt quite confident that everything I had to do would leave me in a very positive, control condition.
NASA has one more chance to get it right.
Ignition.
Lift-off.
Aldrin's first mission would be Gemini's last.
Aldrin conducts three EVAs.
He spends more than five hours walking in space.
Buzz learned not to fight zero gravity but to use zero gravity to his advantage.
I actually felt a little guilty about doing such simple tasks in the back of the spacecraft.
He never got overheated.
His heart rate never went up because he learned to take it easy, he had the proper tools, he had the proper footholds, and we leaned a lot about how we could proceed in the future.
From that day on through to the current day, we have never had a major problem associated with the conduct of an EVA.
Project Gemini ends in triumph.
The stage is set for our greatest adventure.
Gemini was an unsung hero in terms of the readiness of the American space program to go do Apollo in many, many ways.
We had learned the new technologies of space.
We had learned to work with computers.
We had learned to navigate.
We had learned to dock.
Perhaps the most important way was to create the team of people, the band of brothers, that were ready to go do Apollo when the time came.
Ignition.
Engine start.
We've got a real lift-off.
By the time we finished Gemini program, we had a solid foundation in technology, we had the solid foundation in a team, and we had the confidence to use the team and the technology now to take the step -- go to the moon.