Gemini 9A
Tom Stafford's first command-and Gene Cernan's exhausting spacewalk
Original Prime Crew, Gemini 9: Elliot M. See, Jr. (Command Pilot)
Charles A. Bassett II (Pilot)
Actual Prime Crew (Original Gemini 9 Backup Crew), Gemini 9A: Thomas P. Stafford (Command Pilot)
Eugene A. Cernan (Pilot)
Backup Crew, Gemini 9A: James A. Lovell, Jr. (Command Pilot)
Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin (Pilot)
June 3, 1966
45 Orbits
Gemini IX-A Composite Air-to-Ground and Onboard Voice Tape Transcription
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Elliot M. See, Jr. and Charlie Bassett II were the prime crew for Gemini 9. See was a former Naval Aviator who originally graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and later went on to be an engineer and test pilot for General Electric before NASA selected him as a member of the New 9. Charlie Bassett was an Air Force captain and a member of The Fourteen, and widely regarded as one of the best pilots in the space program. On February 28, 1966, Elliot and Charlie were aboard a NASA T-38 (with Elliot flying up front) on a trip to the McDonnell Aircraft factory in St. Louis. It was rainy and there was a low overcast. Elliot misjudged his approach and tried to pull out. Sadly, the T-38 slammed into Building 101 of the plant (where their spacecraft was under construction) and crashed into an adjacent parking lot. 14 people on the ground were hurt-and Elliot and Charlie were both killed. Gemini 9 would have been the first space flight for both men. NASA Photo.
Elliot and Charlie's backup crew consisted of New 9 member and Gemini 6A veteran Tom Stafford (left) and rookie Eugene Cernan (right) of The Fourteen. They were in their own NASA T-38 right behind Elliot and Charlie in the pattern at St. Louis Municipal Airport, when the tower informed them that their friends had crashed. All four men were to have spent a couple of weeks in McDonnell's Gemini simulator. It was a very sad way to be assigned to a flight, but now there was plenty of work to do. The crew rotation Deke Slayton had worked out was reshuffled. Tom and Gene were now the prime crew for Gemini 9, and Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin are called in as their backup crew. NASA Photo.
The original plan was for a launch on May 17, 1966. To that end, the new Atlas-Agena Augmented Target-Docking Adapter (ATDA) was launched first, but it lost its No. 2 booster engine, and then loses guidance. It falls into the Atlantic 90 miles downrange from the Cape. Gemini 9 is postponed until a new Atlas-Agena ATDA can be made ready, and the mission is redesignated Gemini 9A. The new Atlas-Agena ATDA stack is successfully launched at 10:00 AM EST on June 1 (above). NASA Photo.
The Agena ATDA works (or so it seems), but the equipment feeding data to the mighty Titan II doesn't. Gemini 9A is postponed again. Having egressed the spacecraft and removed their helmets, Gene and Tom discuss the postponement of their launch in the White Room, before boarding the elevator that will take them to the van, which in turn takes them back to the suit trailer. NASA Photo.
The launch is rescheduled for June 3. With a few kind words left for them by Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, their backup crew, Tom (left) and Gene (right) are about to have their hatches closed by the White Room pad crew. NASA Photo.
8:39 AM and 33 seconds EST, June 3, 1966: Third time's the charm. NASA Photo.
And this is what they find when they get up there. After all this time, they finally arrive at the ATDA, and discover that the protective aerodynamic shroud that formed the Atlas-Agena nosecone has failed to separate. They have no way to get out and fix it at this point-the finer points of walking and working in space are still to be worked out, as Gene would discover later-so there is no way to dock with the ATDA now. Tom Stafford notes that the contraption looks like "an angry alligator." That's three attempted Gemini-Agena or ATDA dockings with only one success, that being Gemini 8, and they had a short that sent them out of control....still, the rendezvous was achieved. And Gene can still do his spacewalk. NASA Photo.
Tom snaps this photograph of Gene with that now-familiar unfiltered sunlight coming through the hatch window. He has yet to perform his grueling 2-hour-plus EVA on the third day of the mission. NASA Photo.
Once outside, Gene has several tasks to perform as he drifts past Tom's hatch window. One of the big ones is the first test of the USAF Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU), a big "jet pack" that on Earth weighs 166 pounds, and which features 12 hydrogen-peroxide thrusters. The idea was that a guy could strap the AMU on and fly around the spacecraft, rather than crawling around or pulling on handholds in zero-G. NASA Photo.
The problem is, after Gene makes his way back around to the big end of Gemini 9A, where the AMU is stored, he discovers that in zero-G, with no leverage, it is really difficult to put the thing on. Simply pulling on the straps the way you could do it on earth doesn't work, and it becomes a huge struggle. The human body is designed to work in 1 G, and simple tasks need to be re-learned a different way. It is so difficult to put on the AMU that Gene's EVA Life Support System becomes overloaded with condensation from his breath, and his visor fogs up. He is outside a spacecraft in orbit, floating around nearly blind, and he is nearly exhausted. Soon, the visor is so fogged-up that he can't see well enough to perform the test, and they have to just cut the AMU loose. Tom tells him to just relax for a moment before coming back in. The visor clears up a little, but Gene is so tired that it takes every ounce of energy he has left to pull himself along the umbilical and climb in. He manages to snap this unique photo of Gemini 9A before he does so. When he is in the couch, he finds that his legs are bent and jammed painfully into the footwell, and he can't close the hatch at first. With Tom helping as much as he can, Gene finally gets settled and closes the hatch. That's pretty much it for the AMU; NASA wouldn't fly anything like it in open space until the Manned Maneuvering Unit is flown on a couple of Shuttle missions nearly 20 years later. NASA Photo.
9:00 AM EST, June 6, 1966, 27-deg. 52 min. N by 75-deg. W, 345 miles west of the Cape. Gemini 9A spalshes down in the Atlantic after 45 orbits, 72 hours, and 1.2 million miles in space. It's a close to perfect splashdown, just a half-mile short of the aim point, and only about 3 1/2 miles off the bow of the prime recovery vessel, the carrier U.S.S. Wasp (itself now a veteran of several spacecraft recoveries). NASA Photo.
Recovery swimmers help Gene (left, back to camera) and Tom (right) egress the spacecraft within sight of the Wasp. They are hoisted aboard the Wasp less than hour after splashdown. NASA Photo.
Back at Ellington AFB in Houston, Tom and Gene meet the press-and their families. While only a few mission objectives were met on Gemini 9A, NASA learned a lot about working outside the spacecraft. Still, Mike Collins and Dick Grodon had to perform their own tough EVAs on subsequent missions before the techniques and hardware were perfected for Gemini 12, the last flight of the series. Tom and Gene would fly together again on Apollo 10, and Gene would walk on the Moon as Commander of the last Moon mission, Apollo 17. Tom would also command the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, the last manned American mission until the first Shuttle flight in 1981. NASA Photo.
