Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (18 page)

I had considered taking flying lessons but that was out of the financial equation. So, sailing became the big part of our family leisure time. It was lot cheaper than flying and easily accommodated our whole family and friends besides. We spent a lot of time on Galveston Bay in our ‘19 sailing craft, Crackerjack. Bryan was sailing when he was just a few months old and this was before I learned how to get back through the channel in a big crosswind. Jenny and the boys learned quickly and were a big help with the sailing chores. In the seventies we had a real ship, a ’30 Morgan, fiberglass hull, and it even had a head. This was stepping up to the high life. And later on, we had the Wednesday afternoon sailboat races, where the boys worked the sling for firing water balloons at the other boats. Hal Beck was on the “Sundance” and was designated the committee boat, which meant that he did not race, but established the starting and finish line. Hal always had a bevy of bikini ladies to keep his boat clean and serve the beer and the food.

These were magic times for our kids and us. These were the years on the front end of the lifecycle when the primary world of the kids is family. That begins to change when their peer group moves towards more prominence, a natural part of growing up. We were lucky. Even moving into high school, there was a tight family circle until they went to college and then careers. Things changed, but we still remain very close and supportive of one another. Friendswood was a good choice for a place to live and raise family. It seems like such a different world from today. We always left the keys in the cars, house unlocked and if the kids did something wrong, we usually heard about it before they got home.

From seven years old on, Jenny constantly had a horse, and sometimes a couple of ponies in the mix. Her first horse pastured a half-mile down Melody Lane from our first home. Jenny regularly trooped off with a bucket of oats and a halter to go riding. Her riding progress around town was tracked by the “mom network” and the reports were called in as she made her way around town: “Jenny’s doing fine.” “She is by the rodeo park.” Traffic was not much of a problem. Jenny used to compete in the July Fourth celebration rodeo. She did the barrels and she always looked so small on top of her full sized paint. She was and still is a very determined person and the horse had no choice but to behave.

Once, her horse Jeep contracted an ear infection. So Marilyn and Jenny explained to me how I had to put my arm around the horse’s neck and hold him steady while they swabbed the medicine in to the ear. We started into this procedure and in a flash, I flew into the air and then landed on my back as the horse reared up. Jeep went trotting off, unhappy with this treatment and heading back to his pasture. Marilyn’s question was, “Glynn, what are you going to do now?” My answer involved getting a cold beer. Jenny and Marilyn went after Jeep and took him through the gate. Despite this lack of success, Jenny wanted to be a Veterinarian from the time she could talk, and so she is, even a specialist in cardiology and internal medicine.

Glynn, Jr. was the quiet, studious type and with some aversion to attention. When we planned a family photo, Glynn hid out for the afternoon. He just didn’t want his picture taken when he was young. He tried football in little league years and that was okay, but by the eighth grade, he had found other interests, like playing soccer.

Glynn and Kids Christmas Eve

Glynn could be very stoic and he did not go out of his way to let us know if he was hurt or felt bad. He was helping Father John at Mary Queen, at a Sunday morning mass, as an altar boy, when he threw up on the altar during Mass. He had cut his leg at Boy Scout camp earlier in the morning, but never told us, and wasn’t feeling well. Father John just went on with the Mass. He was a whiz at debate and speech and was an original computer “geek.” He used to spend evenings at the high school doing “whatever” on a mainframe computer system. He was very comfortable in the computer world and he could have easily made a career out of software and computing. He also played in the school band, and had a small group. We loved their “Glenn Miller” music. Glynn went to A&M on a scholarship, and became a petroleum engineer, trooped in the Chevron oil fields around LA for a year or two followed by a Law degree from Stanford and now teaches at Tulane Law School. He started in college and ran triathlons, and has since run marathons and a couple of Ironman races, designed for those who like ten to twelve continuous hours of strenuous exercise.

Shawn was the “leprachaun” and is a natural talker. Even today he can tell his mother the most preposterous story and her response is always to believe him: “Really, Shawn? I didn’t know that.” As another source of frustration for his mom, he had this thing of not liking to ride the bus from school. So he would get off at some early stop and go wandering. Folks would call and say, “Shawn got off the bus again and he is here.” Marilyn had to put Bryan on the back of her bike and go get him. He was always the kid that fell into the creek and ended up with croup every Christmas. Now we hear stories from Bryan and his friend of how Shawn and his sidekick, Dean, loved to terrorize and bully them. Bryan learned defensive living at an early age. Shawn was the jock among the boys. On the little league football team, he was the kid who brought the plays in from the coach as he was the only kid who would remember the play from bench to huddle. Shawn’s story is that he often counseled the coach with play selection. He was a good athlete and to this day is a “great salesman.” He went on to play second base for the high school baseball team. He was not a serious student, but the light went on in college, a little late, but it was bright and it stayed on.

As the last and youngest of the clan, Bryan was always easy going and “his parents spoiled him and gave him everything” according to his siblings. Bryan gave up football after a serious hip injury and became a swimmer on the high school team. Bryan was a good swimmer and eventually served as a lifeguard at AstroWorld. He really had to use a lot of Bullfrog sunscreen as his nose would get so sunburned. All the kids were good on the sailboat and could do anything required. Bryan was the lightest and the natural to be cranked up the mast as required on the bosun chair. Marilyn was always afraid of that part. Later in high school, Bryan was a friend to all. He never had a steady girlfriend in high school, but he got a lot of attention. The girls’ moms often called to get Bryan to take their daughters to dances, proms, and other events. When he came home from college for a visit, and this was before cell phones, the girls would just arrive as he drove in. After all, somebody needed to carry his bags. When I was doing the Apollo-Soyuz project later, Bryan was a real buddy to Professor Konstantin Busheyev, my counterpart and Victor Blagov, one of the Russian Flight Directors. Twenty-five years later, he worked with Victor when Bryan was also a Flight Director, as Victor still was.

The boys always had a group of other boys around the house. Jenny hated having all these boys around and eating everything in sight. She tried to insult them into leaving, but that never worked. The boys and their friends still talk about the “sand-spreading” trap. I would order a truckload of sand for spreading around the yard and leveling the lawn. We took delivery on Monday, and they played in the pile all week. On Saturday, wheelbarrows and shovels came out with Dad, and we had a good workforce, six to eight strong young boys. Thirty-five years later and with their own families, they still laugh about the “sand spreading” and admit they were never surprised by my trap, only happy to play along with it. Wonderful times.

Some time early in the operation of MCC in Houston, the unit of three flight dynamics consoles became known as “the Trench.” John Llewellyn probably started it when a number of p-tube carriers piled up around his console, looking to John like artillery shells in a trench. Since the three consoles were also in the front row of MCC, the guys liked to think of themselves as the first line of defense for the crew and the mission. I liked it because the single name also captured the concept of a trio of consoles, all working together as one unit.

After the Agena failure for the original planned launch of GT-6, a very quick turn around plan emerged. It was decided to launch GT-7 first on its long duration flight of two weeks. During the GT-7 flight, GT-6 would launch to rendezvous with it. This would not permit a docking, but would get us started on real rendezvous experience. By this time, the Soviet Union had also tried formation flying. For this GT 7/6 combination, the trench had the same operators as GT-5.

Frank Borman and Jim Lovell in Gemini-7 launched on December 4, 1965, and GT-6 attempted launch on December 12,1965. GT-6 shut down on the pad, because one of the umbilicals pulled early. And, as a very fortunate circumstance, a dust cap was found post-firing in a main propellant line in the Titan and was already causing a decrease in thrust level. There was no lift off, the vehicle was still safe on the pad, and there was no ejection as there were not enough cues to warrant triggering an ejection. The commander, Wally Schirra, made a great decision to sit tight. With different timing of the umbilical release, we could have lifted off with a blocked main propulsion line. That would have lead to the need for a flight abort and a crew ejection, an escape none of us ever wanted to see. Instead, the vehicle was fixed on the pad, the count recycled and Gemini 6 launched on December 15, 1965.

The rendezvous of GT-6 followed a perfect choreography and resulted in Gemini 6 station-keeping with Gemini 7 six hours after liftoff. What a celebration for the whole team especially the Trench. It was a wonderful experience to watch our new operators calmly and professionally execute the rendezvous process so close to the nominal plan.

There were some changes after the first of the year:

• Bryan Lunney was born on January 12, 1966.
  

• Chris Kraft removed himself as the Gemini Flight Director in order to focus on Apollo.
  

• Cliff Charlesworth was selected as a new Flight Director.
  

Gemini 7/6

John Hodge and Gene Kranz were the two Flight Directors for Gemini 8 as they planned to head a two-shift operation in MCC for what was planned to be a four-day mission on GT-8. The launch of the Atlas Agena worked fine and Agena 8 was on orbit as a target vehicle for the rendezvous. The crew of Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott launched in Gemini 8 on March 16, 1966. The same Trench team managed the same rendezvous choreography to a station-keeping position and then docking six-and-a-half hours after lift-off.

Not long after that, the docked vehicle began to have rates and deviations in attitude. At first, it was believed that the Agena control system was causing the problem and the crew disabled the Agena attitude control system. For a short time that seemed to help, but then the unexpected rates returned and began to roll the vehicle. The crew tried the Agena attitude control again. When that didn’t work, Neil Armstrong decided to separate by undocking from the Agena. Since the configuration was now lighter, it started to roll faster. This had to be arrested and brought under control quickly. Neil brought the entry control system on line and shut off the power to the primary control system used for on-orbit operations. The entry control system was actually two completely redundant propulsion systems but with limited fuel supplies. It was the “get-home” system as opposed to the much larger propulsion system used on-orbit but jettisoned with the adapter section prior to reentry. Because of its use to regain control, a significant portion of the entry control system fuel had been used up.

John Hodge, the Flight Director on duty, correctly found this situation to be very serious: primary control system off, the entry control system activated and now low on fuel, and the spacecraft heading onto ground tracks which would provide significantly reduced coverage of the spacecraft for the next ten to twelve hours. Faced with all that, John decided to land Gemini 8 early and in the Pacific with a flight duration of slightly less than eleven hours. The recovery was successful. And, clearly, it was another example of superb emergency decision-making by the crew Commanders - Wally on six and now, Neil on eight.