Deke! by Donald K. Slayton

Author:Donald K. Slayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-09-15T16:00:00+00:00

So Gemini was down to the last mission. Even at that point you could say it had done everything it was supposed to—demonstrate rendezvous and docking. Perform long-duration. Even prove out the EVA pressure suits, though it was clear that we still hadn’t accomplished a truly effective EVA.

Buzz Aldrin, who was going to do EVA on GT-12; his backup, Gene Cernan; and the guys from Crew Systems and Flight Support really tackled this. The basic problem everyone seemed to have was lack of effective restraint: there was no adequate place to wedge yourself to do even basic things like pulling down the arms of the AMU.

One item that did get dropped from the flight plan, just a few days after the end of GT-11, was a proposed test of the AMU. I don’t think any of us believed we had enough experience with EVA to let an astronaut go jetting off at the end of a tether just yet.

The idea behind GT-12’s EVA program was to make EVA itself the experiment—not a method to do some other job, like hooking up a tether. In addition to the handrails mounted on the adaptor section behind the crew cabin—they’d been standard since GT-8—we added other rails and handholds all over the spacecraft. We even put some on the Agena.

There were two “workstations,” one on the nose, the other one built into the rear adaptor. The one in the adaptor came complete with “slippers” that Buzz could lock his feet into.

Getting a docking target took a bit of juggling. The original contract had called for six GATVs—we had flown numbers 5002 through 5006. So we refurbished the first one, bringing it up to spec as GATV 5001R.

We didn’t even have an Atlas rocket programmed for the flight at one point. (The ATDA launch had used up the Atlas that would have carried Agena 5001.) We finally “borrowed” one from the unmanned Lunar Orbiter program.

As Jim Lovell, the GT-12 commander, and Buzz walked out to the launchpad on Friday, November 11, they wore signs on the back of their suits. Jim’s said THE and Buzz’s said END.

Once they and the Agena were in orbit, things went pretty smoothly. They had closed in on the Agena to a range of about seventy-five miles when the rendezvous radar just quit.

It was pretty funny that this happened to Buzz, Dr. Rendezvous. He hauled out his sextants and charts, and with input from MCC managed to get Jim to the right spot in the sky. They docked safely.

Some problems crept up with the Agena, so Glynn Lunney, the flight director, canceled any plans to fire it up and boost the spacecraft to a higher orbit.

Over the next three days Buzz did three EVAs, starting with a two-hour stand-up that went very well. The second EVA was the ambitious one, with Buzz—using his handholds and railings—crawling from the Gemini to the Agena and back. He also did some tests back in the Gemini adaptor, all without getting tired or overheated during another two-hour session.

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