Fifty years ago, Geminis 6 and 7 made the first-ever space rendezvous.
’Twas two months before Christmas, October 25, 1965. Astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford sat in Gemini 6, their chic new two-man space capsule, which sat atop a Titan rocket, which sat atop a launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
One launch pad over, an Atlas rocket blasted off carrying an Agena “target vehicle.” If men were going to land on the moon and come home safely, they would have to rendezvous their lunar lander with an orbiting command module that would fly them home. Proving that a space rendezvous was possible was one of the principal objectives of the Gemini program. And a successful rendezvous would be no mean feat. Getting two spaceships together in orbit would be like hitting one bullet with another — except that your average bullet travels one-tenth the speed of an orbiting Gemini.
Gemini 6 would attempt the first-ever space rendezvous with the Agena, which was an unmanned spaceship. As Schirra and Stafford waited, the Agena was launched — and promptly exploded. Gemini 6 was canceled. The exploded Agena was the only one NASA had.
As 1965 drew to a close, there were just four years left till JFK’s end-of-the-decade moon-landing deadline. NASA knew it was falling behind schedule. Without a successful rendezvous under its belt by the end of the year, meeting JFK’s deadline would be impossible. And without an Agena, it looked as if that might be that — till one Agena engineer was struck by inspiration: What if, instead of rendezvousing with an unmanned target, Gemini 6 were to rendezvous with Gemini 7?
At first, NASA didn’t think it was possible. Gemini 7 was going to be the longest-ever manned space flight: 14 days, to prove that men could survive in space long enough to fly to the moon and back. Even so, if Gemini 7 were to launch first, NASA would have to launch Gemini 6 less than two weeks later. Note that even during the height of the Space Shuttle program, launching one Shuttle a month was a struggle. Two Gemini launches in two weeks looked absurd.
SLIDESHOW: The Gemini 6-Gemini 7 Rendezvous
So said NASA’s head of manned space flight, George Mueller, who nixed the idea. But three legendary NASA engineers — Robert Gilruth, George Low, and Chris Kraft — thought it was possible, if only just. They said they’d make it happen. That was good enough for President LBJ, who personally announced the plan to the country: Gemini Missions 6 and 7 would fly simultaneously, just before Christmas.
The pace of the preparations was breakneck. All distractions were banished from Houston; NASA worked around the clock. Chris Kraft and another NASA man, Paul Haney, were on a commercial flight from Texas to Cape Canaveral to get the launch in order when their plane was hijacked, by an armed man who announced he was taking everyone to Cuba. Kraft and Haney tackled him and saved the day. They had no time for a trip to Cuba. (These were two Americans who truly had the right stuff.)
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The plan was for Gemini 7 to launch first, followed by Gemini 6 just eight days later. On December 4, 1965, Gemini 7 flew smoothly into orbit carrying astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell. (Incidentally: Three years later, Borman and Lovell would celebrate Christmas by broadcasting the opening verses of Genesis from orbit around the moon.)
Borman and Lovell had a long haul ahead of them: Gemini 7’s time in space would be double the longest mission to date. Borman predicted it would be like 14 days in the front seat of a Volkswagen. His backup, Michael Collins, said it would be like two weeks in a garbage can. As it turned out, they were both right — and, eight cramped, exhausting days (and 4 million orbital miles) later, Borman and Lovell were ecstatic to hear that Gemini 6 had, against all odds, made it to the launch pad and was ready to go.
#share#On the morning of December 12, Gemini 6’s Titan engines ignited. One and a half seconds later, they shut off: an emergency abort. Gemini mission rules dictated that Commander Wally Schirra had to pull the eject cord immediately, which would shoot him and Stafford away from their Titan rocket before it tipped over and exploded. But Schirra — a steel-nerved test pilot — waited. He hadn’t felt the rocket lift off the launch pad, which told him that it was still standing upright with a gantry to support it. An hour later, the rocket was declared safe, and the crew returned to the ground in the gantry elevator. Afterwards, Chris Kraft made sure to shake Schirra’s hand: If they had ejected, not only would the mission have been over (their capsule would have been destroyed), but the two astronauts might have suffered serious injuries. Ejecting from a Gemini was risky business. (Astronaut John Young remembers, in his memoir, being disquieted when he overheard a Gemini engineer say that he needed more ejection test dummies — the ones he was using had all been decapitated.)
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Gemini 6’s engines had shut off because the shake of the rocket starting had knocked out one of the Gemini’s electric plugs. The plug was shored up, and — after the whole rocket had got a thorough going-over — a third launch attempt was scheduled for three days later.
On December 15, Gemini 6 finally made it into space. Five hours later Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 — each flying at 18,000 miles an hour — were within 20 feet of each other. And the United States had officially taken the lead in the space race. During the Soviets’ own, earlier, rendezvous attempt, they had managed to get two of their Vostok capsules no closer than four miles apart.
The celebration at Mission Control was uproarious. The celebration in space was almost as giddy.
The celebration at Mission Control was uproarious. The celebration in space was almost as giddy: The two Gemini crews not only spoke to each other over the radio, but waved to each other through their windows. The crew of Gemini 6 even held up a sign for the crew of 7: “BEAT ARMY.” Stafford and Schirra, of 6, were both Navy men.
Mission accomplished — or so everyone thought. Suddenly Wally Schirra’s voice came over the radio: “We have an object . . . going from north to south . . . in a polar orbit. . . . He’s in a very low trajectory. . . . Stand by: It looks like he’s trying to signal us.”
Suddenly, Mission Control was filled with the sound of . . . “Jingle Bells,” played on the harmonica by Wally Schirra. That unidentified flying object was Santa Claus, warming up for Yuletide, 1965.
Soon after, both Gemini capsules reentered safe and sound.
Merry Christmas.