America catches up with the Russians

June 3, 1965 was the date on which the Americans caught up with the Soviet Union, in terms of proving the nation's capabilities in manned spaceflight. Ed White II became the first American to "walk" in space, less than 3 months after Alexei Leonov performed a similar feat.

The Soviets trumped the Americans in many important "firsts" during the early years of the space race. It was frustrating for me as a kid - of course I knew that we Americans were superior but we always seemed to be getting beat. I can only imagine how infuriating it was to America's adults, and to the Government, Department of Defense, and NASA in particular.

Ed White's EVA in Gemini IV brought us up to par on all of the important technical capabilities that the Russians had demonstrated. From that date forward, the US clearly became the leader in the race to the Moon, as we publicly tried out complex techniques in orbit change, rendezvous, docking, and performing useful construction tasks outside of the spacecraft that would be needed to execute a successful lunar mission.

There were no cameras on board the Gemini IV capsule, so we couldn't watch the spacewalk live. I clearly remember listening to it on TV. I don't recall if it was being broadcast live, or if I listened to a replay at a later time. I do remember that this was on an afternoon when we lived in North Carolina, and the spacewalk did occur in the afternoon Eastern Daylight Time, so perhaps it may have been a live news broadcast.

The photos that we saw in Life magazine a week later, after Gemini IV returned from orbit, were incredible. Unaccustomed to the strange sight of someone outside of a space capsule, it was sometimes hard for me to tell exactly what I was looking at. The tether and nitrogen jet gun were strangely alien. I remember being particularly intrigued by the blackness of space as reflected in Ed White's visor...how eerie! Where was his face? But I knew from these photos that my concept of spaceflight would never be the same again.

"If you can't be good, be colorful"

Charles "Pete" Conrad, astronaut extraordinaire, would have been 79 years old today. The title of today's blog was Pete's personal motto. He was nothing if not colorful -- and he was very good, too.

I first heard of Pete when he flew Gemini V with Gordon Cooper in August 1965. Gemini V had an ambitious goal of "eight days or bust" in Earth orbit. That mission, the equivalent time for a trip to the Moon and back, nearly doubled the cumulative total of America's total time in space to date. Pete later commanded the Gemini XI mission with Dick Gordon as Pilot.

Pete and Dick flew together on Apollo 12, joined by Alan Bean. They had the most harrowing launch of the Apollo program, when their Saturn V was struck by lightning just after liftoff. The lightning strike scrambled all of the Apollo capsule's instruments. Luckily, the rocket - which was still accelerating - had its own guidance system which was unaffected by the power surge. Conrad had nerves of steel and was not about to abort the mission unless things became hopeless. A quick-thinking technician in Mission Control suggested a fix that enabled the mission to continue. I remember watching the liftoff from a small TV in my 8th grade shop (industrial arts) class when I was in middle school. I couldn't believe they let the mission continue after that lightning strike!

Pete flew his Lunar Module Intrepid to a pinpoint landing 3 days later. Pete's first words upon becoming the third man to walk on the Moon were, "Whoopee!! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that was a long one for me!" We were disappointed that the Apollo TV picture tube burned out, but I enjoyed listening to the audio broadcast of both moonwalks nonetheless. Pete's and Al's descriptions were very vivid ("colorful" comes back to mind again as the perfect word), and they seemed to be having an incredibly good time as they went about their tasks. I dearly wished I could have seen them working at the Surveyor 3 lander in the last half of their second spacewalk.

Pete's outstanding work as commander of the first Skylab crew was noted in my post last week. After retiring from NASA in 1973, Pete worked for several NASA contractors, including McDonnell Douglas and Martin Marietta. At Martin, Pete was a consultant on the "Large Space Telescope" project, which eventually became known as The Hubble Space Telescope.

Pete was motorcycling with friends in Ojai, California, in July 1999 when his motorcycle skidded off the road. He seemed to be fine after the crash, but he died of internal bleeding 6 hours later. His death was a real shock to all of us who had followed his exploits over the years. I deeply regret that I never had a chance to meet him and thank him for all the good times he gave me.

Keeping the rain and critters out

The spate of rain showers and thunderstorms we have been enduring here in the Washington DC area this past month makes me think of weather-proofing. In particular, I am reminded of the challenge of keeping rain, insects, and other critters out of the many external apertures in the Space Shuttle in times when it is exposed to the elements.

This is not a trivial problem in an area with such abundant fauna as coastal Florida. Whilst on the launchpad, the Shuttle has been attacked by woodpeckers, necessitating a return to the Vehicle Assembly Building to repair the External Tank's insulation. A bat clung tenaciously to the External Tank during a recent launch.

The device shown above is a ground cover for the one of the 'Aft 3' vernier motors that form part of the Space Shuttle Reaction Control System (RCS). The RCS is comprised of the relatively small engines that fire to help the Space Shuttle make small attitude and translation changes in space. Once the Space Shuttle is back on the ground, the servicing crews place covers like this one over all of the exposed engine openings.

This cover is about 13 inches in diameter and it is about 15 inches deep. Once the cover is placed over the engine aperture, the technician pushes to the side the lever that's in the center of the cover (as seen at left in the illustration). Moving this lever causes the end of the shaft (the black rubberized part shown near the center of this picture) to expand and firmly clamp within the throat of the vernier engine. (I don't know about you, but I get excited just writing about it!) Anyway, this locks the cover firmly into place over the engine. The cover is removed once the Shuttle is inside the Orbiter Processing Facility. It is eventually replaced by a paper covering which burns off or ruptures when the Shuttle launches.

The illustration below shows Discovery being towed out of the Orbiter Processing Facility en route to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Near the base of the tail I have drawn in an arrow pointing to the Aft 3 vernier motors at the top of the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) Pod. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see that the red engine covers for the other small thrusters along the side and bottom of the OMS Pod have been replaced by white covers.

Pete Conrad and crew to the rescue!

Skylab, America's first space station, was launched on May 14, 1973. It rode the last Saturn V in NASA's inventory, one which was originally intended for a canceled Moon landing. Less than a minute after launch, as the vehicle broke through the sound barrier and the zone of maximum dynamic pressure, the meteoroid shielding on the lab tore off, taking with it one of the station's two primary solar panels and jamming the other one.

As soon as Skylab reached orbit, controllers knew that something was seriously wrong. Temperatures inside the lab began to rise far outside normal ranges, eventually getting as high as 140 degrees F. There was also no power to the lab other than what was coming via the solar panels on the Apollo Telescope Mount.

I watched the launch on TV and I remember clearly the "oh no" reaction when we heard that Skylab might never be occupied because of the power and temperature problems. Pete Conrad, Commander of the first Skylab mission, and his crew of Paul Weitz and Joe Kerwin, were to have launched the next day. Their launch was scrubbed while NASA determined how to repair the station. Timing was of the essence - if NASA waited too long, the intense heat inside the lab would eventually melt the plastic and render the station uninhabitable.

In what had to be the most intensive spacecraft rescue mission ever undertaken, in less than 10 days NASA designed and built -- and trained the crew to use -- a "parasol" that could be deployed via a small airlock on the side of the station and which would bring the station's temperature back to livable levels. NASA also loaded the Apollo spacecraft with several tools that the crew could use to try to free the stuck solar panel.

The daring tactics of Conrad and crew are almost unthinkable in today's environment. Before docking with the station, Conrad maneuvered the CM close to the stuck solar panel so that Weitz, standing in the CM's open hatch, could try to cut loose the debris that held down the panel. When that didn't work, Conrad then tried to dock with Skylab. The docking mechanism refused to latch on several docking attempts. Conrad backed away and then tried again several times. Maneuvering fuel was running low, and Conrad was given one final chance to try to dock. This time he was told to continue pushing forward for 10 seconds with the CM after the probe had entered the drogue, in hopes that the pressure would cause the latches to fire. This final attempt worked; otherwise, the mission - and Skylab - would have been abandoned. Listening to this on the TV was sheer knuckle-biting tension!

Conrad and crew deployed the parasol successfully, which eventually brought the temperature inside the station down into the mid-80's. Prior to that, the crew were only able to enter the lab for a few minutes at a time without risking dehydration and heat prostration.

Finally, on June 7, 1973, Conrad and Kerwin undertook one of the most dangerous spacewalks ever attempted, to free the stuck solar panel. They worked in an area outside the station that was never meant to be serviced by astronauts, so it had no handholds or railings. They used tethers and their adapted limb pruning tool to get close to the stuck solar panel and eventually snip the metal debris that was holding it in place.

Because of the determination and skill of Conrad and his crew, the Skylab program was a complete success. The lab was occupied by three crews on and off over the next year, and America gained substantial experience in living for extended periods in space.

Aurora 7 and Scott Carpenter

On May 24, 1962, Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the Earth, riding Mercury-Atlas 7, which he dubbed Aurora 7. This capsule and launch vehicle were originally intended to be flown by Deke Slayton. However, he was diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation - a heart irregularity which I share - and was barred from flight status. (Had Slayton flown, MA-7 would have been designated Delta 7.)

Carpenter's three-orbit mission was dedicated to scientific experimentation. He concentrated so much of his attention to science and observation that some people (particularly Chris Kraft in Mission Control) felt that he was neglecting flying his spacecraft. A malfunction in the attitude control system caused the spacecraft to expend much more fuel than planned, requiring Carpenter to go into free-drift mode. He had to align the capsule manually for retro fire. Again, some say that Carpenter was overly distracted by Earth observation, which caused him to mis-time retro fire and subsequently land hundreds of miles off target. Others say that the malfunctioning system required Carpenter to intervene manually, which made the retros fire later than the sequencer should have fired them, and also which caused them to fire in a less than ideal sequence.

Aurora 7's flight was considered a technical and scientific success. It paved the way for Wally Schirra to attempt a six-orbit flight in the next Mercury mission. However, Kraft was so furious about the missed landing and other glitches that Carpenter was essentially blacklisted from flying again. Carpenter permanently injured his arm in a motorcycle accident several years later, which made him unqualified to fly as an astronaut.

Carpenter, who was a Navy pilot before joining NASA, returned to the sea as an "aquanaut" in the Navy's Sealab program. He made a 28-day extended underwater mission in 1965 in Sealab II. There is a hilarious recording available of a call from President Johnson to Carpenter in Sealab. Unbeknownst to Johnson, Carpenter was in a decompression chamber, breathing an atmosphere in which nitrogen was replaced with helium, to prevent the bends. Carpenter's voice therefore sounds as high-pitched as would be the case for anyone inhaling helium from a balloon. In this recording, you can vividly picture the look of bewilderment that must have been on Johnson's face as he read his prepared remarks to Carpenter.

Pictured at left is a photo I took of Carpenter in February 2009 at Spacefest, talking to Jim McDivitt.

Joe Engle and the X-15

I had the pleasure of attending Joe Engle's lecture at the National Air and Space Museum last night. Engle spoke on the X-15's role in expanding our understanding of hypersonic and high-altitude flight.

I was fascinated by the X-15 when I was a kid and the program was in full swing in the early 1960's. For my money, there was never another aircraft or spacecraft that embodied pure speed. Sure, it was technically an aircraft, but let's face it - this was a rocket with wings!

As a kid, I focused on the X-15's altitude and speed records. What I was not aware of was how important a role the X-15 played in the evolution of the Space Shuttle in unpowered flight. Engle put up a chart that showed how similarly the X-15 and the Space Shuttle behaved in their approach and landing characteristics, without engine power. One of the key lessons from the X-15 program was energy management - how to bleed off speed while the aircraft drops like a rock, set up an approach, and make a precision landing at about 200 mph.

Engle had some great stories, too. My favorite was his discussion about how the cockpit windows would occasionally "glaze" - the expansion of the airframe from frictional heating would sometimes shatter one of the two windows. In such a situation, the pilot would set up an approach where he would look out the other window. If both windows were to glaze, the planned procedure was that the chase plane would talk the pilot down to a safe altitude, at which time he would jettison the canopy. Engle said he lived in hope of this happening to him on one of the flights. He even carried a silk scarf in his pocket to tie around his neck. He thought it would be great to come back from a hypersonic flight in an open cockpit, wearing his silver space suit with a scarf blowing in the wind!

Engle graciously signed autographs after the lecture. I was able to complete my crew signatures on the 2TV-1 Beta cloth patch shown in the previous post about Vance Brand. I can't imagine a starker contrast than what Engle must have felt between the short hypersonic X-15 flights and being Earthbound for 8 days sealed in a vacuum chamber!

Apollo 10 Flight Dynamics

The Flight Dynamics Officer - called the FDO or more commonly "FIDO" - is the person in Mission Control charged with determining the appropriate flight paths and maneuvers for a space vehicle, in orbit and to and from the Moon. FIDO was one of the four positions in "The Trench," the first row of consoles in Mission Control.

Ed Pavelka, whose Apollo 10 Mission Control Access badge is shown at left, was a FIDO during the Gemini era, then moved up to a supervisory position during the Apollo program. He trained and oversaw the FIDOs who manned the station during the Apollo trips to the Moon. Pavelka was also responsible for "Captain REFSMMAT" - whose story will be told another time.

People who didn't have the luxury (or pressure) of being in The Trench during the mission could also follow the key guidance and trajectory events with devices such as the Raytheon "Mission Analyzer." This multi-wheeled slide rule allowed one to see the events happening at a given point in the mission by dialing in the date and time in question.