Fwd: The Challenge and Trials of Gemini IX-A

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Subject: FW: The Challenge and Trials of Gemini IX-A

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
June 1st, 2013 

Popeye Forearms: The Challenge of Gemini IX-A (Part 1)

By Ben Evans

 

An exhausted Gene Cernan can barely manage a grimace for Tom Stafford's camera after completing his spacewalk on Gemini IX-A. Had the hands of fate played out a little differently, this seat might instead have been occupied by Charlie Bassett. Photo Credit: NASA

In the late spring of 1966, the Gemini IX mission seemed hamstrung by bad luck. When its prime crew, Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, was named in November of the previous year, they expected it to be breathtaking in its pace and challenge. With three days in space, a lengthy spacewalk, a rendezvous, and a docking with an unmanned Agena target craft, the mission would put every one of Project Gemini's objectives to the ultimate test. Tragedy struck at the end of February, however, when See and Bassett died in the crash of their T-38 jet. The future fortunes of Gemini IX would pass to their backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan … and the mission would take several unexpected twists and turns and bring NASA face to face with the unforgiving nature of space exploration.

Prior to See's and Bassett's deaths, Cernan confidently expected that he and Stafford would fly Gemini XII in late 1966. At the time, Deke Slayton, head of Flight Crew Operations, employed a "rotation" system, whereby the backups for a given mission would ordinarily become the prime crew for a mission, three flights downstream. During their training with See and Bassett, Cernan often found himself wandering along the production line of Gemini spacecraft at McDonnell's plant in St Louis, Miss., to look at "his" future vehicle. At the time of the Gemini IX crews' announcement, Stafford was in dedicated training for Gemini VI, and Cernan found himself in the peculiar situation of working without his commander. His role would be to shadow Charlie Bassett, one of whose primary objectives was to perform a two-hour EVA and test the U.S. Air Force's Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit (AMU). Looking like a massive suitcase, the AMU was so big that it would fly into orbit folded up, like a lawn chair, on the rear of Gemini IX.

Steadily, Bassett would maneuver himself along the length of the spacecraft to reach the AMU, then slip onto a bicycle-like seat, strap on the silver-white box, and glide off into space, using controls on a pair of armrests. It was the result of several years of Pentagon-sponsored development work, with an original focus on the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). "The possibility of using it to send someone scooting off to disable an enemy satellite," Cernan wrote in his autobiography, The Last Man on the Moon, "wasn't mentioned in public, because we weren't supposed to be thinking about the militarization of space."

The original Gemini IX crew, seated, were Elliot See (left) and Charlie Bassett. Their backups, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, were originally targeted to fly Gemini XII in November 1966. Photo Credit: Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de

From NASA's perspective, however, the AMU was a critical tool for understanding how effectively astronauts could work outside their spacecraft. In June 1965, Ed White had floated around for a few minutes, using a handheld maneuvering gun, but Bassett would take a far greater leap. His excursion would span more than a full orbit, and he would be in full control of his motion and direction, using 12 hydrogen peroxide jets, all the time remaining attached to Gemini IX by a long tether. Since underwater training did not yet form part of EVA preparation, Bassett and Cernan spent much of their time undertaking physical conditioning in the gym. Both men realised that vast reserves of strength and stamina were essential to handle the demands of an EVA and operate inside a bulky space suit, and both played lots of handball and performed hundreds of press-ups. "Before long," Cernan wrote, "we grew Popeye-sized forearms."

The space suit itself was different from that worn by Ed White. This was partly due to the demanding AMU, one of whose searing hydrogen peroxide plumes jetted directly between Bassett's legs! As a result, the suit's trousers included additional heat-resistant materials and the complete ensemble featured white cotton long johns for biosensors, a nylon comfort layer, a Dacron-Teflon "net" to maintain shape, aluminised Mylar for micrometeoroid protection, together with fibreglass, and a metallic fabric, woven from the alloy Chromel R. One day, during training, Bassett and Cernan watched as a technician charred the material for five minutes with a blowtorch, confidently telling them that despite the intense heat of the AMU's exhaust, they would remain comfortable inside their suits.

Five days before See and Bassett died, the AMU arrived at Cape Kennedy, Fla., for testing. Initial inspections were worrisome—nitrogen pressurant leaked from its propulsion system and oxygen seeped from its life-support apparatus—but by mid-March its woes had been corrected and everything seemed on track for a 17 May liftoff. Early that morning, Flight Director Gene Kranz arrived at his console to oversee the launch of the Agena target vehicle, atop an Atlas booster, followed 99 minutes later by the launch of Stafford and Cernan aboard Gemini IX. The heightened sense of anxiety was not helped when Deke Slayton took Stafford aside for a quiet "word." Cernan did not learn until later what their conversation was about. It was a conversation that Slayton had with several Gemini commanders whose mission involved an EVA. Cernan's spacewalk would be exceptionally hazardous and, if anything went wrong, NASA could ill-afford to leave a dead astronaut in orbit. Stafford would have to find a way to bring his crewmate back to Earth.

The Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU) would involve a degree of complexity far beyond the EVA of Ed White. Here, Gemini IX-A backup pilot Buzz Aldrin performs a fit-check in the rocket-powered 'armchair'. Photo Credit: NASA

In his autobiography, We Have Capture, Stafford remembered staring at Slayton in shock. "To bring him back," he wrote, "the hatch is going to be left partially open, because the attachment point for the umbilical is inside the spacecraft, near the attitude hand controller." Such an awkward re-entry would not be survivable, for either of them. In reality, he told Slayton, when the explosive bolts blew at the base of their Titan II rocket, signalling liftoff, it was Stafford—as Gemini IX's commander—who would call the shots and make the difficult decisions if anything went awry. Cernan was well aware that Stafford's only option would have been to cut him loose, close the hatch, and return to Earth alone. "I knew that Tom would be unable to pull me back inside if I couldn't get myself out of trouble," he wrote. "He would work like the devil to rescue me, but eventually would have to abandon me. We both knew it."

A few weeks later, Slayton had a similar conversation with Gemini X commander John Young and received a similar reply. "There was no way," Young later reflected, "if anything happened to somebody going outside a Gemini that you could get them back in." The seat was too narrow and it was impossible for the commander to reach across the cabin and pull an inflated, rigid space suit, with an immobile person inside, with sufficient overhead clearance to close the hatch. It is extremely fortuitous that no such event occurred in Project Gemini.

By the time Stafford and Cernan arrived at Pad 19 and were strapped into Gemini IX, all eyes were on the impending Atlas-Agena launch. At 10:12 a.m. EST, the rocket roared aloft … but within two minutes, in the words of Cernan, one of its two main engines "went weird." The engine wobbled, then inexplicably gimballed into a full-pitchdown position, effectively "spinning" the rocket into an uncontrolled tumble. All attempts to stabilize the Atlas were in vain. Ten seconds later, the engines shut down and the pencil-like Agena separated from the rocket … but it was too late, moving too fast, too low, and, said Cernan, "all wrong." So wrong, in fact, that the massive 216-degree pitch-down effectively pointed the rocket back towards Cape Kennedy, with a climbing angle just 13 degrees above horizontal. Guidance was promptly lost and the ill-fated booster plopped into the Atlantic Ocean, a couple of hundred miles east of the Cape.

"Aw, shit!" was Tom Stafford's immediate reaction from Gemini IX.

There was a glint of hope on the horizon. Several months earlier, NASA had directed General Dynamics to build a backup Atlas and McDonnell furnished a backup target vehicle, known as an Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA). It had to be ready within two weeks of any launch accident, and within hours NASA pressed it into service for launch on 1 June. The ATDA had come to be known—somewhat disparagingly—as "The Blob" by the astronauts, but physically it was not dissimilar to the Agena. Its conical docking collar would be jettisoned after orbital insertion and was expected to fulfill all of Gemini IX's rendezvous needs. At the stroke of 10 a.m. on the 1st, it lumbered off Pad 14 and thundered, almost perfectly into orbit. "Almost," that is, because the docking collar only partially opened and did not properly separate.

The Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA) is launched as a replacement for Stafford and Cernan's failed Agena. Photo Credit: NASA

This time, however, it was Gemini IX which was not quite ready to go. Launch was scrubbed when a glitch was detected in the spacecraft's inertial guidance system and the attempt was rescheduled for 3 June. Tom Stafford had endured a harrowing abort on Gemini VI in December 1965 and pad leader Guenter Wendt could not resist a little fun, nicknaming him "The Mayor of Pad 19," because he had spent so much time there. Some of the pad technicians also took part in the ribbing by hanging a large sign on the door to the elevator. It read: Tom and Gene, notice the "down" capability for this elevator has been removed. Let's have a good flight! Gemini IX's new backups, Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, added their own placard, with a few lines of verse:

We were kidding before

But not anymore

Get your … uh … selves into space

Or we'll take your place.

Lifting off atop the Titan II was, for Cernan, like "a feeling of slow pulsation," followed by "a low, grinding rumble" as the rocket climbed steadily to orbit. That slow-motion start to the mission soon gave way to an increasing sensation of incredible speed, as the Titan thrust the two astronauts—both gritting their teeth—into the high atmosphere and beyond. When the second stage shut down, Cernan beheld nuts and bolts and bits of string floating around the cabin as he entered the magical realm of weightlessness. With three days of complex objectives ahead of them, their first task was to rendezvous with the ATDA … and find out the extent to which its jammed docking collar might impede the success of their mission.

 

Copyright © 2013 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

===============================================================

 

AmericaSpace

For a nation that explores
June 2nd, 2013 

Date With An Alligator: The Trials of Gemini IX-A (Part 2)

By Ben Evans

 

Gene Cernan's EVA was the longest to date, by far the most complex … and intrinsically hazardous. Photo Credit: NASA

Almost five decades ago, one of the hairiest and most difficult missions in America's space history unfolded. Gemini IX-A was already complex—a three-day flight, involving rendezvous, docking, maneuvering, and spacewalking—but had endured additional challenges: the death of its prime crew in an aircraft accident and the destruction of its primary docking target in a launch failure. A replacement target, known as the Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA), had been hastily launched, but its own docking collar had only partially opened and remained attached to the vehicle. On 3 June 1966, Gemini IX-A crewmen Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan flew into orbit, ready for trouble.

They acquired a good radar lock on their quarry—nicknamed "The Blob"—and at first it seemed that the docking collar might have successfully separated. Unfortunately, as Gemini IX-A drew closer, it became clear that it was actually gaping, half-open, like an enormous pair of jaws. "It looks like an angry alligator," Stafford told Mission Control with dismay. Initial hopes that he might be able to nudge it with his spacecraft's nose to fully open the jaws was rejected as too risky by Flight Director Gene Kranz, and Stafford was forced to station-keep at a distance of about 35 feet away. It was clear, he reported, that the ATDA's explosive bolts had fired, but two neatly-taped lanyards stubbornly held the shroud in place. The high tensile strength of these lanyards made it inadvisable to nudge the jaws. Moreover, Gemini IX-A's parachutes were housed in its nose and damaging them was unthinkable.

On the ground, at a strategy meeting that night with senior managers Bob Gilruth and Chris Kraft, Gemini IX-A backup pilot Buzz Aldrin suggested sending Cernan outside to manually clip the lanyards with a pair of surgical scissors. Astronauts Jim McDivitt and Dave Scott, in Los Angeles, Calif., at the time, were despatched to prime contractor Douglas Aircraft's plant to examine a duplicate ATDA and determine if this could be done. Their consensus: it was possible, but would leave many sharp edges which could tear Cernan's suit. Also, the tumbling of the ATDA, the almost-complete lack of EVA experience, and the dangers of the explosive bolts holding the lanyards together posed their own risks.

With the "jaws" of its docking collar shroud stuck partially open, the Augmented Target Docking Adaptor (ATDA) presented an alligator-like appearance to Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan. Photo Credit: NASA

In the meantime, efforts by controllers to tighten and relax The Blob's docking cone, in the hope that the action might free the shroud, were unsuccessful. "That only pushed out the bottom part of the shroud," wrote Cernan in his autobiography, The Last Man on the Moon, "and forced the other end, which was open, to partially close. Contracting the collar had the reverse effect, and to us, it seemed that those moving jaws were opening and closing." The alligator seemed to be laughing at their misfortune.

After the mission, it would become clear that the problem centered on the fact that the Agena, the ATDA, and the shroud were built by three different organizations, namely Lockheed, McDonnell, and Douglas. Before McDonnell technicians had made a final inspection on the ATDA at Cape Kennedy, Fla., a Douglas engineer had supervised a practice run, with the exception of the lanyards which controlled the electrical disconnect to the explosive bolts. In the interests of safety, the lanyards were not hooked up for the test.

Crucially, the Douglas engineer was then forced to return home and tend his pregnant wife, telling his McDonnell counterpart to "secure the lanyards." Consequently, on launch day, the McDonnell crew followed procedures published by Lockheed, which had themselves been copied from Douglas documentation. The instructions referred to a blueprint which was not present, and the absence of the engineer meant that those technicians responsible for fixing the ATDA's shroud simply wondered what to do with the dangling lanyards and decided that their best and safest bet was to tape them down. It was those taped-down lanyards which had now ruined Stafford and Cernan's target in orbit. It was a classic example of the old metaphor Too many cooks spoil the broth.

In the meantime, five hours into the Gemini IX-A mission, Stafford nosed his spacecraft "down" by 90 degrees and fired his forward thrusters for 35 seconds to slightly increase his speed and drop "above" the ATDA. Simulating a failed radar, they then plotted their position with an on-board sextant, notepad, and pencil, checked their results against a pre-planned chart solution, and commenced a series of four maneuvers to bring themselves back into a station-keeping stance with the target. It was far from easy and, wrote Cernan, represented "a bitch of an exercise that demanded unimagined mental and physical effort." Nonetheless, six and a half hours after launch, they were finally in the vicinity of The Blob, only to depart again shortly thereafter for a third exercise. To prepare for this, at 3:55 p.m. EST, a little over seven hours into the mission, Stafford again pulsed the thrusters to reduce speed and widen the gap between Gemini IX-A and the ATDA.

By now exhausted, the two astronauts checked their systems, took an opportunity to gobble some toothpaste-like mush of chicken and dumplings—"No crumbs that way," wrote Cernan, but "not much taste, either"—and tried with little success to sleep. Awakened in the small hours of 4 June to begin their second day in orbit, they were almost immediately immersed in the third rendezvous: reducing the size of their orbit to again intercept the still-laughing Blob. By rendezvousing with an object "beneath" them, Stafford and Cernan would mimic the procedures to be followed by an Apollo command module pilot tasked with rescuing a lunar module stuck in a low orbit around the Moon. Phase and height adjustments, followed by a thruster burn, reduced the gap between themselves and the target. "The mental perception was that we were falling straight down to Earth," Cernan recalled years later, "and we did not even see the gator until we were within three miles of it." Stafford, too, later admitted to sensations of mild vertigo. At this point, Stafford spotted what appeared to be "a pencil dot on a sheet of paper" and would point out that, had it not been for the radar, the rendezvous would have failed. The rendezvous was completed at 6:21 a.m., and Stafford and Cernan withdrew from the ATDA at 7:38 a.m.

The two men felt justifiably proud: they had conducted no fewer than three rendezvous in less than a day. However, their work had taken its toll. Both were exhausted, as, indeed, was their spacecraft, whose fuel supply had dwindled to less than 10 percent after the marathon rendezvous effort. Ahead, later on 4 June, lay Cernan's spacewalk, but Stafford donned his commander's cap and told Mission Control that the excursion should be postponed. "We've been busier than left-handed paper-hangers up here," he drawled. "I'm afraid it would be against my better judgment to go ahead and do the EVA at this time…Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow morning." For the first time, Cernan wrote, a pair of astronauts had seemingly "questioned" their duties and, although not a military organization, some within NASA felt that they were quitting. Yet there was little doubt that Stafford and Cernan were best placed to know the situation inside their spacecraft and Capcom Neil Armstrong duly responded that their recommendation had been accepted. Armstrong would later describe Stafford's actions as reflecting "exceptionally good judgment."

A view of Gemini IX-A, including its maneuvering thrusters, taken by Gene Cernan. His lengthy tether is clearly visible. Photo Credit: NASA

As a result, the EVA was moved to 5 June and the remainder of the day was spent focusing upon Gemini IX-A's experiments and ensuring that both men were fully rested. Original plans, dating back to before the deaths of Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, called for the Gemini IX spacewalker to spend at least two hours outside, remove a large, armchair-like Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU) from its housing at the back of the spacecraft's adaptor, and test it. He was supposed to retrieve a micrometeorite package from the original Agena target craft, although this was scratched from the flight plan when the target ended up at the bottom of in the Atlantic, following a launch accident discussed in yesterday's article. A new plan to remove a micrometeorite detector from the ATDA was also called off when it proved impossible to execute a docking.

Still, preparations for the excursion were intense. Early on 5 June, Stafford lowered Gemini IX-A's orbit while Cernan pulled his chest pack down from a shelf above his left shoulder, strapped it on, and plugged in an umbilical tether which would provide him with oxygen, communications, and electrical power. Since the whole cabin would be reduced to vacuum, Stafford also had to be protected, and both men laboriously clicked their helmet visors shut, pulled on heavy gloves, and pressurized their suits until they went, in Cernan's words, "from soft to rock-hard around our bodies." Yet Cernan's suit had much more insulation and protection than that of Stafford. "Out where I was going," he wrote, "the temperature in unfiltered sunlight would be many times hotter than any desert at high noon on Earth, while the nighttime cold could freeze steel until it was as brittle as glass." Approaching dawn on their 31st orbit, the men received permission to go ahead, and at 10:02 a.m. Cernan twisted the handle above his head and the huge hatch swung outwards.

Words clearly defied even the normally-chatterbox Cernan at this point as he pushed himself "upwards," stood on his seat, and rode "like a sightseeing bum on a boxcar" towards the California coastline. Hollering "hallelujah" at the top of his voice, he would later describe the glorious, ever-changing sight as like "sitting on God's front porch," as orbital darkness gave way to the first stirring of dawn. There was little time to sightsee. With Stafford holding onto his foot to steady him, Cernan set to work positioning a television camera and retrieving a nuclear emulsion package which recorded radiation levels and measured the impact of space dust. Next, he affixed a small mirror onto Gemini IX-A's nose, so that Stafford could watch as he made his way towards the AMU at the rear of the spacecraft.

Unlike Ed White, he was not equipped with a hand-held zip-gun and he quickly set to work on his next task: to evaluate his ability to maneuver himself around by tugging at his snake-like tether. It would, he wrote, teach him new lessons about Newton's laws of motion. "My slightest move would affect my entire body, ripple through the umbilical, and jostle the spacecraft," Cernan explained. "Since I had nothing to stabilize my movements, I went out of control, tumbling every which way, and when I reached the end of the umbilical, I rebounded like a bungee jumper, and the snake reeled me in as it tried to resume its original shape." As he looped around Gemini IX-A, the experience was comparable to wrestling an octopus, and Cernan's only chance at controlling his motions came when he managed to grab the tether tightly at the point at which it emerged from the hatch.

Gemini IX-A was a three-day mission—one of the longest to date—and involved a complex ballet of rendezvous, spacewalking, and scientific experiments. Photo Credit: NASA

After half an hour of helplessness, he seized a handrail and pulled himself towards Gemini IX-A to rest. Clearly, he said, future spacewalkers would need propulsion and more handholds; otherwise they would be unable to prevent themselves from flopping around like rag dolls on the end of their tethers. Cernan's rest break was brief: he had to reach the back of the spacecraft before the arrival of orbital dusk to strap on the AMU, exchange his oxygen umbilicals for those attached to the rocket armchair, and commence the next phase of his spacewalk. His move to the rear of Gemini IX-A was far harder than he could have anticipated. The stiff, bulky suit fought his every move and lacked the flexibility and mobility that he desperately needed.

Nonetheless, Cernan labored, hand-over-hand, halting at times to loop his tether through small eyelets and thus keep it from damage. Finally, he reached the adaptor at the back of the spacecraft and, swinging himself around it, disappeared from view in Stafford's mirror. The Sun, too, vanished as Gemini IX entered orbital darkness over South Africa.

Working in near-pitch blackness, Cernan flicked on a pair of lights—only one of which worked, yielding a glow little more effective than a candle—and prepared to activate the AMU. Thirty-five meticulous steps lay between him and achieving the goal of becoming the first human satellite; steps ranging from pushing buttons to opening valves and disconnecting, then reconnecting, his oxygen supply. His heart rate, which reached 155 beats per minute when he arrived at the adaptor section, showed no signs of slowing as Cernan puzzled over why he had been able to accomplish the task with ease in a parabolic aircraft and yet the real thing was leaving him exhausted, drenched with sweat, and almost blind. At last, he flipped the last switch and prepared to take the AMU on its maiden outing.

All was far from being well. A hundred minutes into the spacewalk, Cernan was scarcely able to see through his fogged-up visor—the suit's environmental control system was struggling and failing to absorb the humidity and exhaled carbon dioxide—and his heart rate soared to 195 beats per minute. Unable to wipe the stinging sweat from his eyes, he had no choice but to rub his nose on the inside of his visor just to make a "hole" through which he could see. He also tried increasing the oxygen flow to his suit in a bid to clear the visor, without success.

Cernan's lack of visibility could hardly have come at a more inappropriate time, precisely when he was completing the intricate procedure of readying the AMU to fly. At one stage, he even had to rely on the reflection in a polished metal mirror on his wrist and on his sense of touch through his thickened gloves for guidance. Merely turning knobs, without adequate leverage, was virtually impossible. So too was telescoping and folding out the AMU's armrests—getting them extended into place was, he wrote years later, "akin to straightening wet spaghetti." Eventually, after much tugging and twisting, he found success, slid onto the saddle, and strapped himself into place. His next step was to disconnect himself from the tether and reconnect himself to the backpack's life-support and communications supplies. From his position, inside the concave steel adaptor at the rear of Gemini IX-A, he temporarily lost communications with Stafford, who could barely hear Cernan's crackled garble that he was unable to see in front of his own eyeballs. Stafford was now worried for his colleague's safety, advising Mission Control that communications had degraded and Cernan's visibility through his visor was so poor that the AMU test was risky.

On the ground, the doctors were coming to similar conclusions: data from Cernan's biomedical sensors clearly indicated that he was exhausted, expending energy at a rate equivalent to running up a hundred stairs per minute, and his heart was pumping three times faster than normal. Cernan knew that their judgment could spell the end of his spacewalk … an eventuality that, as a pilot who had been training for more than six months, he had no wish to contemplate. At length, the decision was snatched out of his hands.

The onset of orbital dawn over the Pacific brought the garbled news from Stafford: "It's a no-go … because you can't see it now. Switch back to the spacecraft electrical umbilical." The Hawaii capcom concurred. Obviously disappointed that he had not only lost his chance to fly the AMU, but that the U.S. Air Force's $10 million rocket armchair was destined to burn up in the atmosphere, Cernan unstrapped and clawed his way back to his hatch. To protect the interior of Gemini IX-A from solar radiation, he had left it partially closed and was now blinded by the Sun as he struggled to find it.

An exhausted Gene Cernan can barely manage a grimace for Tom Stafford's camera after completing his spacewalk on Gemini IX-A. Had the hands of fate played out a little differently, this seat might instead have been occupied by Charlie Bassett. Photo Credit: NASA

Finally gripping and pulling open the hatch, Cernan twisted himself and pushed his feet through the opening. Stafford manually reeled in the umbilical, then grabbed one of his suited ankles to anchor him back inside the cabin. As he tried to get back inside, Cernan inadvertently kicked the Hasselblad camera that Stafford had been using to photograph the EVA and it drifted off into space. "There went my still pictures," he wrote later, "but I did retrieve the movie camera."

Scrunching himself painfully into his seat, still fighting against the stiffness of the suit, he quickly found that he could not close the hatch. Eventually, with Stafford's help, the pair managed to yank it down and Cernan pumped the handle until the hatch was secure. In his autobiography, he would admit that the pain was so intense that he cried aloud—"but only Tom really knows"—and came close to losing consciousness. Then, as Stafford began repressurizing Gemini IX-A's cabin, Cernan felt the rigidity of the suit begin to soften and he was finally able to breathe properly and remove his helmet. The United States' second spacewalk was over in two hours and eight agonizing minutes.

Exhausted, the beetroot-faced Cernan was doused with weightless droplets fired by Stafford from a water pistol, and strips of skin from his swollen hands tore away as he removed his gloves. He looked, wrote Stafford, "like he'd been baked in a sauna too long." However, with the exception of the reaction he might get from the other astronauts, Cernan really did not care. He had endured the most traumatic spacewalk to date … and, astonishingly, had lived!

Less than a day later, at 9 a.m. EST on 6 June 1966, Gemini IX-A was bobbing in the Atlantic. Cernan described his first fiery re-entry through the atmosphere as "like a meteoric bat out of hell" and compared the spacecraft as having the aerodynamic characteristics of a bathtub as it plummeted Earthward. They splashed down close enough to their prime recovery vessel, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wasp, that they were able to offer and acknowledge thumbs-up signals with the ship's crew.

Gene Cernan's harrowing EVA would teach a harsh, yet valuable lesson to those engineers, managers, and even astronauts who perceived extravehicular activity as a proverbial walk in the park. Why, some journalists asked him in the weeks that followed, was his spacewalk so difficult in comparison to Ed White's graceful stroll? The key differences, of course, were that White had been equipped with a hand-held propulsion device and that, other than floating around, he was not actually given any specific tasks.

Yet Cernan's problems—the shortcomings of his suit's environmental controls, the fogging of his visor, the difficulties encountered when getting back into the spacecraft, the need for handholds, the impossibility of moving without a propulsion device—highlighted an urgent need for such issues to be rectified before the closure of the Gemini chapter in November 1966. Apollo managers, then hard at work preparing for the first flight of their spacecraft in the spring of 1967, also took heed: future Moonwalkers could not operate on the lunar surface for many hours under such life-threatening conditions. It is quite remarkable, therefore, that by the time Cernan's backup, Buzz Aldrin, completed his own EVAs on Gemini XII, the problems would have been virtually resolved.

 

Copyright © 2013 AmericaSpace - All Rights Reserved

 

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