12 SA FlyerATTITUDE FOR ALTITUDE
With the initial excitement
of the Mercury low earth
orbit flights over, and
Kennedy’s promise to put
a man on the moon by the
end of the 1960s, there was
intense national pride at
stake to get to the moon
before the Russians.A
FTER the ‘spam
in a can’, Mercury
flights, it was
apparent that the
next astronauts
would face real
challenges to
their piloting and
engineering skills. So Neil Armstrong
applied for, and succeeded in, being
selected as a Gemini astronaut.
The Gemini spacecraft were to be
used amongst other things to pioneer
intercepting another space vehicle and then
docking with it. Armstrong knew that this
would require extraordinary hand eye co-
ordination and judgement. What he didn’t
expect was yet another test of his now
famous nerves of steel and extraordinary
piloting skills to save what would have been
the first fatal spaceflight.Armstrong was the Commander of
Gemini , and his task was to dock with the
Agena capsule launched on an Atlas rocket.
This was the first time one spacecraft would
dock with another and the simulators on
earth could not replicate the conditions in
space. Armstrong was up to the challenge.
They adjusted their orbit until they caught
the Agena capsule and then, using the
hand controlled thruster rockets, inched
closer. With Dave Scott in the seat beside
him calling out distances and elevations,
Armstrong lined up the docking hatch of his
Gemini spacecraft with the funnel shaped
adapter on the Agena and crept nearer until
finally the latches clicked into place.
The two spacecraft had become one
44 ft long vehicle as they crossed over
Madagascar. Over the Indian Ocean they
had a dead zone where there would be
no communication with Houston Mission
Control for 22 minutes. After the intense
concentration needed for the docking they
were looking forward to some relaxation.
And that’s when they had a problem.
Scott was testing the Agena’s rockets to
manoeuvre the combined space craft when
a turn went too fast. Looking at their -ball
situation indicator, Armstrong realised
they were in a continual spin. One of the
thrusters must have become stuck on. They
could hear the thrusters making popping
noises but what they didn’t know was that
the sound was the ignitors – they couldn’t
actually hear the thrusters burning.
They spun faster and faster and it was
feared that the two docked spacecraft
would tear each other apart, becoming
a fireball over Mao Tse-tung’s China.
Armstrong’s biographer, Jay Burbree,
writes: ‘ ́We’re going to disengage, ́ Neil
told Dave, who immediately agreed and
suddenly Neil’s hands were magic. He was
firing bursts from the Gemini’s manoeuvring
thrusters and he fought and fought until
Scott was convinced Neil had steadied
the linked spacecraft enough to undock.
Dave yelled, ³Go ́ and he hit the undocking
button.’
They pulled apart but then the Geminicapsule started spinning even faster. The
problem had not been on Agena, it was
a stuck thruster on their Gemini capsule.
Their vision was beginning to grey out from
the rotation. Armstrong realised that the
only control powerful enough to counteract
the spin was the Re-entry Control System
(5CS). Using direct control of just one ring
of the RCS system and while spinning
at a dizzying 550 degrees per second,
Armstrong managed to slow down their
spacecraft. But having used the RCS, they
now had to get down as soon as possible.
It was decided that they would terminate
the flight 500 miles east of Okinawa.
Aircraft were scrambled from Japan and the
destroyer, USS Mason.
In the end the re-entry and recovery
was uneventful and when the debriefing
and analysis was completed, Chief Flight
Director Chris .raft concluded that ³it was
truly a fantastic recovery ... and really
proved why we have test pilots in those
ships. Had it not been for Neil’s good flying
we probably would have lost that crew.”
Armstrong’s performance with the
near disaster on Gemini secured him the
position of pilot for Apollo 11. The real flying
challenge was to fly the Eagle Lander onto
the surface of the moon. (If you think the
moon landings are a hoax you can stop
reading now)
To master the Eagle Lander was going
to take every iota of flying skill Armstrong
could summon. NASA built a ‘flying
bedstead’ called the Lunar Landing Training
Vehicle (LLTV). This was a diabolical
contraption with a 4,200 lb thrust turbofan
engine mounted on a gimbal that was
throttled down to support 5ths of the
LLTV’s weight and thus simulate moon
gravity. For descent control, the LLTV
had two hydrogen peroxide rockets with
thrust that could be varied between 100 to
500 pounds. Then there were 1 smaller
thrusters to control pitch, yaw and roll,
plus six 500 lb back-up rockets in case the
turbofan engine coughed. Finally, the LLTV
had an ejection seat.
It was said that the skill needed to flyGuy Leitch - Astronauts Part II
Eagle in lunar orbit. No longer 'spam in
a can', Armstrong's piloting skills were
put to test for the landing on the moon.ASTRONAUTS AS
UBER-PILOTS