Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (19 page)

Another management change occurred after Gemini 8. John Hodge went to join Chris getting ready for Apollo and Gene, Cliff and I were to take up Gemini. After Gemini 9 with Gene as lead, it was expected that Gene would go back to Apollo. He did, but he did come back for Gemini 12, as we were not as happy with the two-shift operation as we expected.

By this time also, I had been the Flight Director on the first unmanned Saturn 1B launch of the new Apollo command service module (201) on February 26, 1966. This was a test of not only the active systems in the vehicles but also a test of the heat shield for reentry. It also had some significant challenges for the MCC operators, with a capability to control attitude by ground command if the automatic control system failed. I was very relieved that we never had to exercise that option. The countdown produced one space-first but it was not a pretty one. The launch had been scrubbed by the LCC at the Cape. The flight team in MCC was milling about, getting ready to leave but waiting to see if recycle estimates for the next countdown were coming in yet. After a number of minutes, Kurt Debus, the Launch Director at KSC called and asked, “Flight, can you unscrub the scrub?” This was a new term for me and everybody else, but the meaning was crystal clear. A check with our controllers, the M&O for the MCC and Network for the remote stations and data support resulted in a scramble. It all came back positive so our “GO” went back to Dr. Debus promptly. The flight was a nominal and excellent success. But as a result of the first scrub, our boss Chris had left to catch a plane for an out of town meeting and missed the flight, probably the only one he ever missed. He never said anything, as in happy, mad or raging. So I assume happy.

Gemini 9 was planned as a rendezvous and docking mission, with re-rendezvous sequences and a very extensive EVA. The EVA centered around a major new system mounted on the back end of the Gemini spacecraft adapter and called the Auxiliary Maneuvering Unit (AMU). This was a considerably more complicated EVA than any we had attempted so far, because Gene Cernan was actually going to don this back pack device by backing into it and “strapping” it on. After release from the Gemini, Gene would pilot the AMU through its paces, although with a tether. We still felt the tether was prudent. In talks with Tom and Gene before the flight, it was the first time that I came to really appreciate the physical demands of EVA. As a preparation for that, both of them were doing weight training, especially upper body. Wrestling that umbilical into the cockpit and getting the hatch closed were not optional.

Gene Kranz was the lead Flight Director for this flight. And so we came to launch day on the Gemini 9 mission, and on April 17, 1966, the Atlas Agena was launched first as a target vehicle and ended up in the Atlantic right off the coast of Florida. Because of the failure of the target vehicle last fall, a back-up stage was conceived and implemented as an alternative to the Agena stage. It was called an augmented target and docking adapter (ATDA). It was put on top of another Atlas and launched on June 1, 1966. The Gemini spacecraft was planned to follow one revolution, about ninety minutes later, but it was scrubbed when ground equipment failed to properly load the azimuth signal for the guidance computer. Quickly, this was resolved and Gemini 9 went into orbit on June 3, 1966.

Gemini 9 “Angry Alligator”

In the meantime, the Agena systems flight controllers had been observing high fuel usage on the ATDA stage since it got on-orbit. There was also no confirming telemetry signal indicating shroud separation. This set off some rapid response in trying to understand the shroud a lot better than we did. Some astronauts on travel on the West Coast (McDivitt and Scott) went by the factory and looked at flight hardware first hand. After review at the Cape, the launch crew reported the most likely cause of the hangup as a configuration error in attaching a lanyard. This explanation still left us with a dangerous condition.

The rendezvous went like clockwork and more of the new trench operators got to try their skills at orchestrating this new technique (Ed Pavelka and Bill Gravett). Tom Stafford had just flown GT-6 and the GT-9 sequence went smooth as glass. When the crew was station keeping, they reported that the shroud covering the docking system on one end of the ATDA was not fully deployed. It appeared to be still held together by the metal band and the partial opening made it look to Tom Stafford like an “angry alligator.” And the name stuck. Commands were sent to cause vehicle motions in an attempt to free the shroud. As expected, that did not improve the situation. We were left with an incomplete opening and two halves of a shroud with some amount of stored spring energy still sitting there.

Instead of the planned docking, we waved off and did a separation maneuver to buy a little time. This maneuver was designed to create an equi-period Gemini orbit that would return to the ATDA in one revolution. When the crew returned, there were no changes or any new ideas. “Don’t intervene if you don’t know what to do” was a guiding principle that had served us well over the years. And we stuck to it.

There had been another planned re-rendezvous scheduled for this mission to simulate a lunar module abort scenario. We decided to embark on that exercise at this point because we could not dock and to continue station keeping just expends fuel. That would also give us time to consider what if anything to do next. In MCC, we were opposed to going any further with crew EVA actions to attempt release of the shroud. But, we now had time if anybody came up with a different and workable idea. Assuming there would not be any such breakthrough, the crew could then get a solid sleep period before the demanding umbilical EVA to operate the AMU on the next flight day.

All was under control, until I was summoned to a special management meeting. On arrival, there was ongoing discussion about how to do an EVA to free the shroud. Most of the management of MSC was there: Dr. Gilruth, Chris, Deke and Chuck Mathews, the MSC Gemini program manager, and George Mueller, the Associate Administrator of manned flight and other NASA HQ people. Buzz was presenting and I wondered if this was his idea. Dr. Gilruth had been cross-examining Buzz and was negative on what he was hearing. The idea of trying to “do something” to release the shroud took on an air of unreality. We had been through this with the MCC teams and it was unanimous that the risks outweighed the gains by a clear margin: lack of EVA experience, lack of a real approach to fix the problem, and not the right balance of risk-reward. Long discussion and a good summary by Gene Kranz on the shroud and mechanisms did not seem to register. There was a sense of being enamored with the idea of successfully “doing something” on the part of some people there, especially those from HQ and two parties from MSC, Buzz and Chuck Mathews, the MSC program manager. Chuck spoke in favor of doing an EVA to fix the problem and there were no more objections voiced - Gene’s was already noted. I learned later that Chris and Dr. Gilruth felt that it was so obvious that this was a bad idea that it would be refused by the crew (or MCC team) later. It still seemed to me like an idea worthy of a resounding “Hell no” right up front.

My observation was: in decades of dealing with flight problems before and long after GT-9, this stood out as a bad idea deserving of firm rejection. Maybe, there was something else at work that we operators were not aware of. There was an easy way to handle that by just telling us. But we never learned of extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, it goes down as an anomaly in our flight decision-making history.

There was an undercurrent of another ongoing dispute. We had a history of HQ attempts to inject themselves into operational decisions, at least the “big” ones. In early Gemini, HQ sent us a person (can’t remember his name), new to all of us and to this business, to make the “big” decisions in MCC. On his first countdown, Chris and the LV test conductor scrubbed the launch for good reason. But this fellow considered it his prerogative. His only problem was that he could not enter the discussion because he did not know how to work his intercom. Some boss. Later in that day, I inadvertently walked into a conference room, deserted except for Chris and this guy. In the silence, I could immediately feel that the temperature in the room was in the thirties. Chris was in one of his towering angries. I turned right around, left and never saw that guy again.

To tie this “compulsion-to-intervene” and the EVA decision on GT-9 into a package, I noticed later (by GT-10) that there was a pronounced change in attitude about the role of the HQ Mission Director. From then on, their only request was that we inform them of any change in plans so that they could keep HQ appraised. No harm, perfectly fair. No one talked to us about this shift to a more sensible role by HQ and it took a while to believe that it was real. But, it is easy to imagine their horror when they realized that they almost made a colossal mistake in over ruling MCC and ordering this decision on the Gemini 9 EVA. (There could not have been more dramatic evidence of what a bad decision it was than the results of the upcoming planned EVA within twenty-four hours.) They apparently and wisely decided to stay out of operational decisions and to support the flight team in the future. To their credit, they did.

Some of this urge to assert derived from the fact there were many people in our industry who participated in space hardware development programs and it is somewhat natural to assume that one’s experience applies to this new field of space operations. However, it did not. I have tried to convey the time and effort spent on mission rules (our code of ethics for risk/reward decisions), flight techniques, simulations, actual operations and years of immersion. These are the prerequisite experiences, much more so than design.

While this management dispute played out, Tom and Gene in Gemini 9 were doing the re-rendezvous to test the approach by the chase vehicle from a position above the target. In this approach, the crew is approaching the target from above and the features of the earth below are behind the target vehicle. The combination of ocean and desert background made it difficult to have a good continuous visual of the target vehicle during the whole time. Nevertheless, it was successful and the crew flew up close to the ATDA, within inches, and took more photos. By that time, the crew had been up a long time with the intensity required for three rendezvous sequences and Tom requested that any EVA to work on the shroud be postponed to the next day because of crew fatigue. This was essentially a “No-Go” for the shroud EVA because we did not have the fuel to park and re-rendezvous again. We were delighted with Tom’s assessment and agreed.

On the next flight day for the planned EVA, preps were nominal and the hatch opened at 49:22 elapsed time. The crew reported difficulty with the umbilical, much stiffer now as it was pressurized. This was followed by almost two hours of scary reports from our friends in Gemini 9. On the trip to the rear of the Gemini spacecraft where the AMU was located, Gene reported serious fogging on his visor. When he arrived at the AMU station, he reported that any work took four to five times the effort he expended in training. Gene had difficulty deploying the arms on the AMU and began to rest periodically to attempt to clear up the visor fogging. Only marginal improvement in vision resulted. This was becoming very serious and we could not do anything to really help. Tom, the decision maker on the spot, called off this excursion. Gene wrestled his way back into the cockpit. He and Tom got the umbilical pulled in and closed the hatch in a little short of two hours. It wasn’t until post-flight that suit inspection revealed a tear in several layers of Gene’s suit, caused by contact with an antenna. That’s closer than anybody wants to get. And another good call by the Commander. Gemini 9 landed and we truly celebrated their return.

And soon, Gemini 10 readied for launch on July 18, 1966. John Young and Mike Collins were the crew. The objectives were: to rendezvous and dock with Agena 10, to use the docked Agena 10 and Gemini 10 to rendezvous with the Agena 8 stage, to conduct EVA operations, to conduct docking practices and experiments. This was a fairly complex flight schedule, as demonstrated by having three vehicles lined up in the same plane, after orbital insertion. Gemini 10 was trailing the Agena 10 by 850 miles and leading the Agena 8 vehicle by five hundred miles. Rendezvous choreography had advanced to three active vehicles being managed in earth orbit. I was the lead Flight Director.

Because of the number of maneuvers, spacecraft fuel was a critical resource and Tom Holloway, the flight activities officer (FAO), developed a clever set of mission options whose choice depended on the level of Gemini fuel remaining at various mission points. Often, this type of “what if” analysis is not used, but it was a lifesaver on Gemini 10. During the initial terminal phase of the Gemini-Agena 10 rendezvous, there was a surprisingly high level of Gemini fuel usage due to deviations in the braking phase. This triggered a major mission change, which had been carefully thought out and extensively discussed in finalizing Tom’s contingency planning set of options. It was easy to decide to select the option to remain docked to the Agena 10 stage for an extended time of about thirty-nine hours. In this option, the necessary maneuvers for rendezvousing with the Agena 8 were made with the propulsion of the Agena 10 docked vehicle.