When We Left Earth: NASA Missions

In the high desert of California, NASA tests an experimental rocket plane. The X-15. They want to put a man into space and they're in a hurry. Rockets were powering aircraft to higher and higher speeds. The X-15 had enough energy to zoom to altitude subpo the atmosphere. The X-15 flies so high. Highlets experience weightlessness and look out into the darkness of space. But even at 600,000 horsepower, it would need to fly four times its top speed to put a man into orbit. The Soviet Union holds an early lead in the space race, launching the first unmanned satellite to orbit the Earth. To beat the Soviets, NASA must launch a man into Earth orbit. Only rockets can go fast enough, more than 17,000 miles per hour. They call the program Project Mercury. An rally a team of determined young scientists and engineers to figure out how to fly a military missile with a man on top. Most of us came in from aircrafts like this. We knew nothing about rocket trade or you knew nothing about spacecraft, we knew nothing about orbits. Gene Kranz joins the flight director's team in NASA's earliest days. So it was a question of learning to drink from a fire hose. We had learned all about trajectories I'd never heard the term, retrofire, coming on down from orbit, getting a spacecraft back home. No man has ever survived a vertical blast off on top of a rocket. At first, even stuntmen are considered for the job. There were suggestions they'd take people like evil, can evil and race drivers or something like that. And then President Eisenhower just said he'd rather have it be military test pilots. 110 pilots qualify. NASA selects the top seven. These ladies and gentlemen are the nation's Mercury astronauts. The Mercury seven astronauts become instant celebrities. The press follows their every move. You knew these guys. You lived with these guys. You socialized with them. They were the story. Wallace Shaw, a the best textbook flight of them all. Alan Shepherd, extremely smart. Scott Carver, the first scientist astronaut, the fourth-order Cooper, the best pilot of the bunch. Deep, great human being in every way. Gus Grissom, engineering savvy, John Glenn, probably the most level headed. To carry the first astronaut safely into space, NASA designs a pressurized capsule. The one man's spacecraft replaces a nuclear warhead as the payload for a red stone missile. I saw a lot of rockets launched. I'd say that somewhere between 30 and 40% of them failed. A lot of them came up off the pad and went the opposite direction. Some of them got halfway off the pad and blew up. Some of them got to 10,000 feet and turned the other way and blew up. We're looking at this thing and looking at each other and deciding we want to go back and talk to the engineers a little more of you for a go further. Engineers make the rockets more reliable for man flight. But doctors still aren't convinced the man on top will be able to function in the weightlessness of space. There was grave doubt in about 98% of the medical community that the man could perform a task one-flying and zerg gravity that he would have trouble seeing that he would have trouble swallowing. He would have trouble breathing. He would have trouble talking. We had to prove to the medical community that man would survive in the first place. It's not made public. But John Glenn, Alan Shepherd and Gus Grissel are on NASA's short list to be America's first man in space. We're all very competitive. We want to get those first slides. The rocket and capsule are finally ready to fly. But none of the astronauts are happy about NASA's choice. Especially train chimpanzee named Ham will fly the next Mercury mission. NASA's medical team sends Ham as a final test that man can function in zero G. Ham blasts off on a suborbital mission into space. 3 2 1 0 Well, waitless, Ham's put through a series of tests and performs well. Physically, he's unaffected by zero G. His mission proves man can function in space. He's fatigued, dehydrated, but generally in good shape. But doubts remain about the reliability of the rockets, and they still don't know who will fly first. Is it been a big mystery for a long time? Who's got a flight first? The director of the man's spacecraft center finally reveals his choice. Alan Shepherd was chosen to be the first because he was considered to be the smartest of the seven astronauts. They felt if Alan on the first one, anything went wrong, he was more out to be able to analyze or fix or do or get it out of it. After more tests and more delays, NASA still hopes to put the first man in space. We have done everything we know how to do to make this safe as we can make it. We're done with all the tests, so we stand around and look at each other one last time and ask, OK, are we ready to light this candle? Eventually, the answer to that has to be yes. Alan Shepherd's suborbital mission finally has a launch date, May 2nd. But on April 12, NASA receives stunning news. The Soviet Union puts a man into orbit and brings him back alive. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space just 20 days before Shepherd is scheduled to fly. We're all very angry about not being able to fly as quickly as we could have, and we would have beaten Gagarin into space, had we done that? Well, it's not pleased at all. He was very disappointed that he was not to be the first spaceman. May 5th, 1961 to 4 AM. Shepherd's pre-flight medically. After three days of delays, the final countdown has begun. He was a cool kid. But Alan Shepherd was an educated daredevil. Everybody was praying Alan could survive in space. It was very exciting, very frightening to see a man come out of the trail of the people that he was in. To look up at that vehicle, run the elevator up and wait for us to get ready to launch. 521 AM. Technicians strap him into the castle. Shepherd's only linked to the world is deep slayton, the mission's capcom, or capso communicator. In the Atlantic, the Navy prepares for Shepherd's recovery. 45 million Americans watch the launch live. Local beaches offer a front row seat. Everybody, including myself, came here. We came anyway. We could. Everybody was praying and pushing for Alan Shepherd. The M is a goal. We have a military home. As the countdown progressed, we had frustrations. They had problems with the spacecraft hatch. And Alan Shepherd was getting impatient four hours later. Shepherd is losing his cool. I wanted Jason. You could see Alan Shepherd's heart rate go up and it reached above 200. Lord knows what my heart rate was. There's nothing wrong with being frightened. It makes you do a better job. But no one at mission control wants to give the final go for launch. All of us were extremely apprehensive. We had never had a human being on the top side of a rocket. It's Alan Shepherd. He decides they've waited long enough. Finally he says, let's light this candle. Let's go. He had one single on prayer. Just before ignition. Don't mess this up. But he didn't say mess. The first hit in a football game. When that mercury redstone rose above the tree line, car stop. People got out, hit their knees and lit up the prey. We saw that guy go. And we could track him for about the first time. We could see the guy on the ground. We could see the guy on the ground. We could see the guy on the ground. We could see the guy on the ground. We saw that guy go. And we could track him for about the first 20 seconds. He went up through power flight and then back down at the consoles. And look at the date and listen to the calls. He is disappearing. Here's a man going over a hundred miles in the space. He looks so lonely up there. Thank you, okay. Five minutes after lift off. Alan Shepherd becomes America's first man in space. Peter, please open your eyes, okay. Patrick Mayor. Shepherd's suborbital flight reaches 116 miles above the earth. Then descends. I hope you guys are free of seven. I want five by one. I'm going to re-enter the attitude. The whip there. Five, two, three, two, one. Right, go sequence. In retro attitude, I train. Rector one. NASA still fears the high G forces or extreme temperatures of reentry could kill it. Rector, let's go through. OK, three, Rector is required. There is no question. We are, we are sweating bullets. OK, three, two, one. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. Mission control loses radio contact with Shepherd during reentry. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. In Mission Control, we're absolutely helpless. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. Off frame set. OK. Hey. Stand. Ready to set this in. six. OK. And then you can go through aihat column and trim up. OK. Oh, yeah. in 20 minutes of our entire life. And everybody, everybody help. And here when everybody is somebody walking here from all the other areas, you know? I think he proved without in question in anybody's mind that man, indeed, could perform almost any task in a spacecraft. This was our first man in space. And it was total joy. Just 20 days later, President John Kennedy sets a new goal for America's Space Program. I believe that this nation should commit itself, achieving the goal before this decade is out, a landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to the earth. This young president of ours gets up and says, we're going to go to the moon and we're going to land there, and we're going to bring the people back home within the decade. I was staggered as stunned or overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge. The first American has barely reached space. And NASA still hasn't put a man into orbit. But the countdown to the end of the decade has begun. We had the knowledge, the moxie and the will, to not only catch up, but surpass and beat them in the business of spaceflight. NASA wants to put another man into space in a hurry. To prove Shepherd's mission was no fluke. They figured that the algorithm is the engineer, so Gus will make the second flight. And he'll be looking at for engineering question. But the intense training prepares them to do very little actual flying in space. Seven of the world's best pilots won us in the world. But the intense training prepares them to do very little actual flying in space. Seven of the world's best pilots won a spacecraft they can control. Gus was somewhat frustrated because the people that were putting this together were trying to make it so that the astronaut really had nothing to do. He was just riding in the state. It took a while to convince the pilots that we wanted to use their talents to make the machine better. We split up the duties in the group itself. And while my duties were in cockpit layout, organizing your instrument panel so you get the information when you need it. The equipment was going to follow booster development for us. Scott, I think it was on navigation and then how we're going to keep track of where this thing is. Gus, Chris, and he had a whole recovery effort in organizing the Navy. So each of us had sort of a special area like that. NASA redesigned the capsule. Grisson will have greater control over the flight of his spacecraft and a new explosive escape hatch. Grisson names his capsule, Liberty Bell 7. It has another important new feature. In the original spacecraft design there was no window. The reason was that that was going to add weight. Not only the window itself, it had to be thick, but the support structure around it. And weight was critical. Ten weeks after Alan Shepard's flight, Gus Grisson is ready for a second suborbital mission. Shepard is Grisson's Capcom. The rocket is ready for the flight. Roger, this is very nice. But I'm late, I'm just not waiting. Alan, please. Don't go. Don't go. I'll get out. Captain, we're separated. The capsule is coming around the door, but they have it too. So just all things you have to do and you just can't help but look out their way. I am not there. Okay, it's a nice ride up the mountain. On it, Roger. The Atlantic ship capcom is a very nice 7-high region atmosphere. 15 minutes and 37 seconds after the blast off. Nearly a bull's eyes crashed. The capsule had landed in the water. At that point we thought it'd gone well. We have a few minutes left. We have a water over here. We have a lot of 30 seconds for it. Roger, about 7-year status looks good. Your symptoms look good over. It was the joy of having a successful mission. It came off like the piece of cake. You ready to come in? On a nine. That's what was right here. We're ready to start your journey. The guest was sitting there, mining his own business and all it once that was pow. The hatch blew. Water started coming in over the side. The capsule starts sinking. Grisson has only moments to escape. All right, the surface of the car is blown right after the old. The space right now is designed to keep him afloat. He had forgotten to close one of the valves and his suit. And it was letting water in. No longer a life-reserver. The suit fills with water and drags him under. On a wear Gus Grisson's in trouble, helicopter pilot Jim Lewis tries to save the sinking capsule first. We almost had it free and out, but every time it came out, a wave would come along and grab it and pull it back down. In Mission Control, we're absolutely helpless. We were watching the helicopter trying to grab on the move to spacecraft up. And we could see Gus struggling out there in the rotor wash. And in Mission Control, a lot of us were saying, forget the spacecraft. Get Gus, get Gus, get Gus. Suddenly Lewis has another problem. The warning by indicates his engine is overheating. Normally when that happened, you had about five minutes worth of engine power before experiencing an engine players. I didn't want Gus and my aircraft in the event that we lost the engine. We were going to listen. A second chopper rushes in to pick up Gus and has Lewis struggles with the capsule. Gus is safe. But Liberty Bell 7, and all its invaluable data are lost. The entire spacecraft sank in three miles of water, which was deeper than the Titanic. And we had no vehicles that were capable of building the recovery. We lost the spacecraft. But we got our crewmen back. Gus was destroyed about losing his capsule. He said that that was the only craft that he ever lost. President Kennedy congratulates Grisson. But suborbital flights aren't enough. America is still coming in second in the race for space. And NASA still hasn't fulfilled the primary goal of project Mercury. Launching a man into orbit and bringing him home alive. In his capsule, friendship 7, John Glenn will attempt NASA's first orbital mission. We lived in a motel about 15 miles south of the space center. And every morning when we'd get ready to come out to work, we'd go and look and see if the search lights were on on the launch pad. The search lights were on. We felt pretty confident driving in because somebody was out there doing something. And the countdown was more than likely progressing. The felt okay. We're going for it. We're going to get it today. NASA needs more power to put a spacecraft into orbit. The larger Atlas rocket will blast Glenn 162 miles above the earth at a speed of 17,500 miles an hour. Glenn will orbit the earth three times. NASA's biggest concern, Shepherd and Grisson were waitless for five minutes. Glenn will be waitless for nearly five hours. Someone predicted that in zero G, your eyes no longer needed to be supported by the structure under the eye. And that your eye would gradually change shape in orbit. Here I might change enough you'd have trouble seeing the instrument panel. I've been through all of that 11 schedule dates and three times up there. I'm going to finally came. It was almost a surprise to go. We just got to go. When you're out there and you're actually on the launch pad, there's no way to simulate that. Glenn, what's that guy? Do you want to change him please? Oh my lord, we'll have to cut the cap. More than 50,000 people watched from nearby Coco Beach. Well, your reporters would watch from the beach, because they wouldn't let us in. But we kept banging at the gates and kicking at the fences. They said they're more of a nuisance outside and they'll be on the inside. So they finally let us in. It was just the greatest place in the world. The hundred million people across America watch the countdown live. But it came time to go. The whole world was with me. All recorded to fast the 11th seconds of coming. I was the communicator for the countdown. I wanted to say something like a boner boy or a shuddy. I have a good time. Man, to all so, endless the aid of our maker and protecting him. I was expecting somebody to say it. It was a long hold of some kind. And I couldn't believe it. I didn't hear that fuck you. I'm free. We're on the way. You're on the way. The excitement of John Glenn going into orbit. This was the adventure of the 20th century. The moment when the final adolescent will shut down when friendship 7 should separate from the booster rocket and begin orbital flight. The moment we can't go with any東西. Our tire can be gone, I am no archipelift impatient. After all the dire predictions of what might happen, how you might feel in space in zero G. And the one they problem at all. The frontiers zero J and I feel fine, caps with turning around. Of course, in the Mercury spacecraft, there weren't any place to float too. You were just in there, you were going to cockpet, you were strapped in. The most you could do would be looseness traps to be able more comfortable. That was the he-ladet feeling of zero G and then seeing how things work and seeing whether you could swallow. Nothing prepares you for the view as you look outside. You can see the curvature of the Earth's surface. And whole nations are still at a glance. Everything was going so well that was beyond belief that it could go that easily. But as Glenn completes his first orbit, mission control confronts its first crisis in space. You have time on each of everything, report on control subjects and time. The planetary people noticed a signal which was indicating that the heat shield had come loose. It was very scary to me. If indeed the heat shield was loose during the entry, the spacecraft would probably get very hot. Temperatures of 3000 degrees. The heat might burn off the heat shield and it would have killed him. We ran a few tests to see if what we were seeing was correct. We began to ask him questions. Do I feel he bumping or something like that? So it's quite obvious they weren't telling me exactly what they were thinking on the ground. If the problem is real, the straps for the retro rockets are the only thing holding the heat shield in place. We are recommending that you will leave the retro rockets and each more to these higher freeed traits. Very very powerful. We tried to start the judgment of the planes like that. Our rider's failure. It didn't like not being told what was wrong with the machine that he was flying. The reason we didn't was because the one night thing he could do about it. I think the astronaut needs to know everything they know on the ground. If he lost communications, the astronaut should have all the information. The engineers quietly hoped the straps hold until the capsule hits against her head. Then the force of descent should keep the heat shield in place. The rocket's fire. When I first started re-entry, the retro rocket's fired. The straps had held that retro pack onto the basic spacecraft itself burned off. The re-bearing chunks coming back by the window. Sort of a thump on this spacecraft. That is the friendship 7. I think the impact is let go. 7. 7. This is a game to your reach. 7. 7. Real fireball outside. Doing re-entry, I and I's plasma builds up around the spacecraft, causing a radio blackout for about 3 minutes. The world waits to hear if John Glenn is alive. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 7. 9. 8. 8. 7. 8. 7. 7. 9. 9. 9. 9. 8. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 8. 7. 9. 7. 7. 5. 7. 9. 7. 7. 7. 8. 9. 7. 7. that this country could compete in the world of spaceflight and at the Russians, indeed, were not ahead of us. Some months ago, I said that I hope that every American would serve as country. Today, Colonel Glenn served here, and we all express our thanks to him. We have a long way to go in the space race, but this is the new ocean. And I believe the United States must sail on it, and be in a position second and none. The US is on track to fulfill Kennedy's dream. Yet orbital flight is just one small step. Now NASA must begin to explore the hostile territory of space. The United States is a new country. In his capsule, Aurora 7, Scott Carpenter will fly next. John's flight was an experimental test flight. Mine was to be more of a scientific investigation. There were visibility experiments. There were capsule maneuvering tasks that were new. But it was a very busy flight plan. Now we're getting away. Aurora, wait for it. Okay, turn around, let's stop. I'm to think now. I have the moment that the hunter of the window. But I've never liked the way we planned. And our videos... Scott Carpenter, I call him a romantous. He was interested in the beauty of space. Sun rise in the sunset. I remember just spinning at camera a little, and letting it go and watch it stay right there. That's an amazing sight. The view and the weightlessness. Things do look different. The stars don't twinkle anymore. There's no atmosphere. It's an addictive sight. He was distracted many times during the flight. For the first time, conflicts arise between the astronaut and mission control. He kept using the fuel in a cavalier fashion. He was maneuvering the spacecraft. Look here there and everywhere at sights that he wanted to see. Frankly, I can understand that. There was a requirement for me to expand more fuel because of the observations I wanted to make. During the first revolution, he used up the fuel in the automatic control system almost completely. We had told him to stop using that system. He got to the manual system and used up all about 10% of the manual fuel. When he came up on retrofire, the fuel had been almost entirely depleted. I didn't have any fuel. The thrusters were not working. For reentry, Carpenter has to manually turn the capsule 180 degrees so the heat shield faces down. But he has another problem. An automatic attitude sensor used to align the capsule is off by nearly 40 degrees and only Carpenter knows it. He did not tell us that. And we had no way of knowing on the ground there was this bias there. Now he's got to fire the retrorockets manually. Carpenter is on fire. Carpenter has to fire that man. Can't fire over that. Carpenter. With a faulty sensor, Carpenter's already off target. If he's not positioned perfectly, the heat shield down. The capsule will burn up. You simply check the capsule to heating and that could be catastrophic. Fatal. 3, 2, 1, 10, 10. Okay, fire 1, fire 2, and fire 3. I hope we have an assure. I get the brains door at this time. Mission Control loses contact with Carpenter during the radio blackout. 3 minutes later. Nothing. 3, 2, 1, 10, 10. I don't know if you can see it. It's pretty hard to find out. 4, 7, 10, 10, 10. After 40 minutes, still not a word from Scott Carpenter. The press is already speculating that NASA has lost its first astronaut. 47, 47, you can't go. Flight never. Flight 4, start to have to be really quick. Flight 3, you can't fly off the target. Finally, reconnaissance flights locate Carpenter 250 miles off target. Nobody knew where it was after my flight, but I knew exactly where it was. Carpenter floats in the Atlantic for three hours. Nothing worked exactly the way it should have, but we brought back some interesting new information in the space flight. Scott Carpenter achieves all his mission objectives. Yet flight controllers think many of the problems he faced could have been avoided. 5 months later, while he sure off lies six orbits. Then Gordo Cooper circles the Earth 22 times over a day and a half. Cooper becomes the first American to sleep in space and the last to orbit solo around the Earth. 5 months later, the Earth is a very important and important planet. As project Mercury comes to an end, project Gemini is already preparing to blast off with a bold new goal for America's exploration of space. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon and instantly do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. The Mercury program was the most challenging of all the work that we've ever done in space. To Greg Stetton, the Mercury astronauts were literally flying by the seat of their pants. There's nothing I think could prepare us for that kind of an experience. I've been very fortunate. We were all for one and one for all. The Mercury astronauts took the first heroic steps into a new frontier. In project Gemini, the learn how to fly to the moon. The flight's the moon we're going to take 10 days. We had to learn how to live in space. Could they operate our right-ends, he wrote, Groudi? How do we get to the moon? Gemini missions will carry two men. Something NASA has never attempted. NASA announces a second group of astronauts. They call themselves the new nine. They're an 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 like the all of them. We really had a great group. Many of America's most famous astronauts start out in Project Gemini. Jim Lough, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong. Ten 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. I was bulletproof and invincible. You know, there's nothing I couldn't do. Just give me a shot. Don't tell me I can't do it because I can do it. To do what we do, you have to be a little arrogant. NASA announces the crew of America's first two-man flight into space. Rookie astronaut, John Young. My wife is in one minute flight. She thought I'd get killed. I didn't think of it. Flying in space next to Young. Project Mercury veteran, Gus Grissom. My friend, his great guy. 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 joy-right there. To lift the new two-man capsule into space, NASA needs a more powerful rocket. Here, forces 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 Man are going to ride it into space. The first one is the first one. The first one is the first one. The first one is the first one. The first one is the first one. The first one is the first one. The first one is the first one. The second one organic after Buddyfight. Then normally, I'm eating this dispositiverse. There was one friend who was running away. The second one is so nice. I think if you can forget that, you can eat a piece. Is the 2.32 Cup of Nutella exercises indeed? My dad was trying to push me heavy. But I was in second place while he had managed using urgently that substances in the lab... ... laquelle it could Be Strong. I remember sitting watching TV with my mother and father one day when they were going to show a live lunch time at the Cape and it's saying, just barely go to off the pad when it blew up. Of course, that wasn't exactly a confidence bill that front of my mother and dad. Engineers check and recheck every part and install redundant systems throughout the rocket to make it more reliable. Finally, NASA launches two rockets that don't explode. Gus Brissham and John Young will ride the next Titan missile into space. Gemini III is mission objectives, test drive the new rocket and capsule and return to earth. A life. Thousands of people across the country, various places, they're all going through this building of the excitement, heading towards the launch and this examination of conscience is to whether all that should be done has been done and nothing has been forgotten. It's almost like the force is with you. We're all kind of home here, Brad, to make sure they got up there and did all the things we were supposed to do. It was a white knuckle time and mission control. Anything goes wrong and Grissham and Young will be killed with millions of people watching. Gemini III is a gold for launch. I think about your procedures that you're going to run. Fried, you ever thought about it? I thought. Must have lostoro. Good luck, honey. That was pretty good launch. I had to quite a few G's going in orbit. Peace came. It was as close as we could get to perfection. The launch went perfectly. The spacecraft performed. And remotely. It went swimmingly. Grissam 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 then we screwed up on reentry. When we fired the retrorockets, we forgot that the Earth woke Tainted 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 sure we were 60 miles short. We were 190 miles short. We got to make all the 60 miles of it. After three orbits of the Earth, waiting to be rescued is the worst part of the mission for Gus Grissam. He was a little seasick. You know, how's old Navy guy? He's been flying in nothing. I've been our destroyer for years. So I'm not to make me see him. To Chavez. Crowds fill loremen-hatgin to welcome their hero's home. It was raining and snowing and we're sitting there in an open car. I'm as an old Texas boy. I don't think being 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 extra vehicular activity or EVA. EVA was a key element that had to be accomplished successfully before we could go into 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 working on a moon. We had to learn how to live in space. The biggest unknown, how effective the human body can be when waitress. NASA engineers devise a way to cheat gravity. It's called the Vomitcomk, 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. We could push off 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 Vomitcomk. A lot of people got sick doing that. It was sort of like sea sickness squared. I read it, look forward to going into the vehicle again. I said I don't need that vehicle. Zero gravity is only one problem. There are other dangers waiting outside the capsule. The space suit is the astronauts' last line of defense against the extreme conditions in space. You'd be 250 degrees plus on sunny side and on 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 astronauts 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 had NASA knows a Soviet cosmonaut has already walked in space. It shocked a lot of people. It caught us totally unexpected. 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. And then I was going to have to work my ass off to get it done on the next flight. I was called over to a spacecraft. And basically he told me the NASA administration or 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, standby 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 to leave the capsule and walk in space is rookie astronaut Ed White. Ed White was, you know, if we had a boycott in the space program, I think Ed White epitomized what a boycott really is. He was probably what everyone thought an astronaut should be. White's partner on Gemini 4 is Jim McDivit. At NASA, they're known as the Gemini twins. I knew Ed White for a long time we had gone to university and Michigan together. We lived on the same street. Our kids that we each other went through the test by the school in the same class. Ed and I were very close. We're extremely close friends. Gemini 4 will also be America's longest space flight yet. Four days, 62 orbits. Putting an EVA in the any flight for the first time as a bull step. But, you know, that was part of the mission. In those days, we were taking big steps. Now is the 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 US from getting to the moon on Kennedy's schedule. NASA scrambled around and they kind of heardly and in my estimation, without a great deal of safety factor, had Ed go EVA on Gemini 4. I was not in favour of it. Even in NASA, few people know Gemini 4 is accelerating America's first space walk. The EVA was very confidential at the time. We had not announced we were going to do this. And we were doing all of our training at night. And only the group would maybe 30 or 40 people even knew we were going to try it. NASA announces the first American space walk just a few days before the launch of Gemini 4. A long time is a very critical time. Everybody's keyed up. Everybody's got a good job. The hard work has got to work. The walking out was my first thought was, I got this and just like I saw a television. But, you know, you got your mind another thing. I was probably going over the launch things I had to do. You know, you're not thinking about girls and comic strips. You know, it's a business. We have our old program in a shit. We have a lot of time. Eight and a half days you really be pushed out of the seat. And all of a sudden it stops and you're floating. A lot of fun. The crew went through the preparation process to report that we were ready. I had a tracking station, make sure that all of the safety criteria had been met. And this was now OK to open up the hatch. OK, we're going to go for your EVA at the time. OK. Roger, let's go. After we got the hatch open, I had stood up in the seat and got ready to go. And we'd cleared them to go and then he took and pushed off in the seat. Can I beat her up? I think I've got a little bit right on one of my other gunshots. OK, I've got the Nip Biz. Ed White is flying at 17,000 miles per hour, 200 miles above the earth. OK, I'm on. If the space suit fails, the difference in pressure will kill him instantly. If the lifeline fails, he'll literally be lost in space. No one thing to do would be to disconnect them and then float around out there. I mean, these are things that's in everybody's mind. We don't have a plan. We don't have a checklist on how you kill your best friend. As White floats in space, a glove drifts out of the capsule. But try to throw him up there, OK? I don't even know who's glove it was. I don't know whether it was his or mine. I feel like I'm going to die. Today, those pictures are are classic. They're still over par today to realize number one has been done. And that we did it. It blew me away. This is the greatest experience I've ever seen. I'm going to go down there. That white floats in space for 36 minutes. But has to be inside the capsule before day NYU turns tonight. We told them to get back on the spacecraft. He sort of didn't hear us. He didn't really want to recognize. OK, that it's the EVA's over time to get back on the spacecraft. He's very reluctant to get back in. He was having a good time out there. I would have been reluctant to get back into it. I told them to get some help back in the spacecraft because he could stay in out too long. It's going to be out in the dark. That's the only time I've ever spoken. Without being spoken to in space. The EVA is NASA's riskiest mission yet. And a critical part of any flight to the moon. Head and white spacewalk will always be one of the genuine highlights of the space program. The next EVA... Gemini 4 propels the space program a giant leap closer to the moon. At least until the next EVA... ...the next EVA. After the first US spacewalk, project Gemini tackles one of the most difficult procedures in the flight plan to the moon. Probes show its 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. Astronauts for Gemini 7 are Commander Frank Borman and pilot Jim Lovel. One of the things that we had had to test out in Gemini was the ability to rendezvous with another vehicle. They were starting to talk 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. 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 go to try. Ronda was absolutely critical. It involves 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. Three, two, one, and a big big. And we'll start moving home. Gemini 7 blasts off first. I can get ready. We're on our way back, huh? I'm sure we're here, so I have to go for safety. Roger's dead. Rocket engines blasting off cause massive destruction. NASA crews have to rebuild the launch pad for Gemini 6 in just three days. A job that usually takes weeks. Are you can tell him that the pad preparation schedule is going very well? Gemini 6 rolls out to the pad as Gemini 7 waits in space. Forman and local was spent 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 communities said that there might be some body functions that don't perform. Nobody had done that to that date. And so I launched with probes in my head. They even wanted to put a proban in our area. I drew the line on that until no idea we do that this time. His NASA prepares to launch Wally Sharah and Tom Stafford in Gemini 6. Another test rocket is fired in the direction of Gemini 7. We did that because the fastest part was interested in tracking Soviet missiles. Bornman and level 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 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 to forge it. Back on the ground, had 19 is ready to launch Gemini 6. To forge the capes we are going. The prime power for the Gemini 6 flight Wally Sharah and Tom Stafford. Now on their way to launch complex 19 to bridge space craft. She managed 48 and all still going well with our Gemini 6 countdown here at launch complex 19. We will have ignition at 0 and some 3 seconds after ignition the launch vehicle will lift off on the start of the Gemini 6 flight. We are going to complete the checklist once again and we are counting. We are clear to take off. We are at your audience at a start of 3 2 1. We are at the start of 3 2 1. The presser's lower is low. That is the presser's down of 32. The faulty valve causes the engine to shut down. Just seconds before the rocket would have exploded. Okay we are just sitting here breathing. Here's two guys up there going through this trauma. We put the tight known to pad and start the engine and the damn thing shut down. Stafford and Shura are lucky to walk away. Gemini 7 Houston, we were wondering if you saw the ignition at the gate. We were a perfect position to be the result ignition. We are waiting for the lift off. The Gemini 7 waiting in space Gemini 6 has the smallest launch window of any NASA flight. And within three days we fixed that issue and fixed that problem and launched again. Gemini 6 you are a go. Here's a band goal. 3 2 1. The rocket is running. The rocket is running. The rocket is running. Welcome home. The cabin pressure is sealed at that 5.5. 50 seconds. Okay there orbit is 87 by 140. From a lower orbit Gemini 6 is catching up to Gemini 7. How does 7 boys do it? They go over a water dome. They burned it. They're about 5 minutes ahead of it. Roger. But when Gemini 6 came up to Ranovo we saw them coming up from below. Hey I think I've got it. Is that space press 7? There's nothing more the ground crew can do. The pilots are now in complete control. The two capsules Gemini 6 and 7 are attempting to fly information just inches apart. Great. It's 0.40. 6.60 feet. We could have bunked each other. One of the things we want to make sure was that you slow down. We didn't want to have a device where we missed judged our velocities and then slammed into each other. It was still dark out but we could see the jet firing from Gemini 6. 1 out of 18 feet. You're going 17,000 miles an hour. You're 200 miles up. No two spacecraft have ever been this close. Ask them what their range is now. The number for Mr. 7 everything is going. Our Roger's congratulations. Thank you. We 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 it through the windows. It could see Tom and Wally quite well. We could see it through the windows. The two pilots fly their capsules and 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 bother and anything. Randevood 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. Level in Bourbon 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. Nine days had gone by before Frank looked at me and said, Jim, I think this is it. I've got to go. I said, can't you wait five more days? At 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 Lvood kept his wonderful sense of humor up and that was no problem, no problem at all. We were very happy when we got back out of the carrier. Gemini 7 flies nearly six million miles in 14 days. In those two weeks, the sun rises and sets on level in Bourbon more than 400 times. It was very difficult to walk. While Lvood had been used for two weeks, and I actually had to command my Lvood left, left, right, left, right. To walk down the deck of the carrier. We learned one hell of a lot about how to do round of a... With each Gemini flight, NASA acquires another skill necessary to reach the moon. One last critical maneuver remains, docking in space. The first crew to attempt it, our Dave Scott, and commander Neil Armstrong. Grondavu, docking, and operating combined spacecraft was a key element of the Apollo strategy. We went to prove that ability on Gemini 8. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition, and ignition. Fireman, fireman. Armstrong will rendezvous, then dock their capsule with an unmanned, a Gina target vehicle. 160 miles above the Earth. 25, 4, 3, 2, 1. 7, 6, 3, 2, 1, 1. 8, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 1. It was a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong, and make the approach or the docking. situation. We're likely our doctor. Our doctor, this is a real good. After a successful doctor, the coronation began a slurrier. The role rate became uncomfortably high, and we were unable to determine the cause of the problem. We've disconnected our spacecraft from the agenda. Our role 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 role rate increased to more than 400 degrees per second, our vision was beginning to degrade. To regain control, arm-strong counters with a different set of rockets. In the alarm, we were able to see the light of the rocket. The rocket was able to see the light of the rocket. The rocket was able to see the light of the rocket. The rocket was able to see the light of the rocket. In the alarm, strong had to power up the re-entry control system and the Gemini spacecraft. Fortunately, it's all the problem. Armstrong studies the spacecraft, but burns fuel he needs for re-entry, 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 Perth of the 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 Sernan on Gemini 9. We were on a fast track to get to Apollo. I will be able to find a Gemini flight every six weeks. There are four Gemini missions left. The Moon now seems within reach. Things change when we got to Gemini 9. The Moon has to learn to work in the vacuum of space. Engineers scrambled 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 spacefall. Spearers and it was at white. Went out with a lagoon was able to pull him so far out 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. We had a fairly complicated set of things to do on Gemini 9. This is only our second walk. We know very little about what we're going on counter. This is a dangerous mission. Gene Sernan 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 it. I knew I was good enough to do it. I was coming home and I was going to do it. I was going to do it. I was going to do it. We opened a hatch. Tom Stanford held my feet now so it wouldn't just float out. And I just got the top half of my body out. I'd stop my head out into 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. Sernan has to fly test a new jetpack mounted in the rear of the castle. But just getting there is hard work. I had nothing really to hold on to except a couple handlebars. The vacuum of space offers no resistance even simple tasks are massive strut. You are the most helpless creature in the world. I'm the end of a string floating in zero gravity in space. Suddenly realizing my visor was getting fogged up. The visor fogged up. Harry was in effect blind. I was not allowed to find a way to go. It was obvious that he was in trouble. And he was struggling like the devil to hold his location. My heart rate was running at 140-50-60 times 170. It was scary to us because you could hear this labored breathing. It'll 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. But I couldn't determine the degree of the difficulties that he was in up there. I was in a quiet night. Sir and finally gets to the jetpack and straps it on. But he's too exhausted to fly. It was time to basically call the EVA off. It was a nightmare get back in a 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 to job done. I let my colleagues down. I was disappointed. I was going to get to the space. 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 approached it in almost a text book 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. I had the divers, he 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. I would leave me in a very positive control condition. NASA has one more chance to get it right. I'm done. Aldrin's first mission will 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 learned 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, they were ready to go to Apollo in the time camp. We had a solid foundation in technology. We had the solid foundation in the team. We had the confidence to use the team and the technology now to take the step. Go to the moon.