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“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Just like with Isaac Newton, the Apollo program did not stand alone. Its achievements would not
have been possible if it had not been for the important missions that ran before it
and alongside it. It built on the understanding learned from those missions,
expanded on their technology, and drew on the expertise of the people who worked on them.
I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watching Astrum. Join with me today as we examine two of those
vital early programs – Project Mercury and Project Gemini – and investigate how
they helped a fledgling NASA to gain a greater understanding of how to put a man on the moon.
I hope by the end of this video to have earned your like and subscription.
NASA as an institution has not been around forever. It was only created in 1958,
in response to the Soviet Union launching the Sputnik satellite about a year earlier.
However, it’s not accurate to say that NASA was completely new, even in 1958. When US President
Eisenhower signed off on the formation of NASA, he did it by combining several already existing
programs and institutions. There was the NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics),
the US Army’s Ballistic Missile Agency, and German scientists who had worked on ballistic missiles
for Germany during World War Two. Beyond that, the US Air Force had been working on a “Man in Space
Soonest” (or MISS) program, which was also given to NASA, along with some of their facilities.
These alongside other government projects provided the foundation for NASA. However, amongst all of
these, there wasn’t a way to get a human into orbit. The closest was the X-15 program of
the NACA. This aeroplane was able to skim the edges of space, and in the early 1960’s broke
records by flying to a height of 105.9km, and achieving speeds of over 6000 km/h.
A later X-15 broke 7,200 km/h and holds the record to this day for the fastest crewed,
powered aircraft. However, while this was above the Karmin line of 100km,
the FAI’s definition of space, this really is the limit of an airplane. Something more would need
to be developed to get a human into orbit, and ultimately to the moon. And so, NASA began its
first project to get a human properly into space – Project Mercury. Project Mercury’s mission was a
continuation of the “Man in Space Soonest” program – and as that name suggests, its objective was to
get a man into Earth orbit and back again safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. This would not be
an easy task. Riding a rocket into space meant an astronaut would need to deal with G-forces,
intense vibrations, the risk of explosion from riding on what was basically a repurposed missile,
and the threat of catastrophic burning up on re-entry. Scientists also worried about radiation
once an astronaut left the atmosphere, and even micrometeors striking the ship.
While some of these threats proved to be negligible (the odds of being hit by a meteor
turned out to be very small), the rest were very real dangers to a human life. The rockets NASA
used for Project Mercury were the Redstone rocket, which was later replaced by the Atlas rocket.
Both of these rockets were originally designed as missiles. The Redstone was a direct descendant of
the German V-2 rocket developed for use in the war. When the Second World War ended, America
brought German scientists over and put them to work developing American weapons and technology.
Wernher von Braun, a German scientist brought over in this way, became a chief engineer at NASA,
and was instrumental in helping develop the rocket technology for Project Mercury and later Apollo.
The idea was for a launch vehicle to carry a pod up to a height of 161km, shedding boosters and
unneeded sections along the way. The pod would orbit the Earth (getting as high as 280km at
the highest point in its orbit), before using its boosters to re-enter earth’s atmosphere.
After surviving the frictional heat of re-entry (which got as hot as 1600 degrees C),
parachutes would open and slow the pod’s landing in the ocean, where it would be
retrieved. Boosters would need to jettison at the correct time, to keep the weight down.
This didn’t always happen. They were trying out new ablative heat shields – rather than
completely prevent heat absorption, ablative heat shields absorbed a large amount of heat
and then burned off as a gas, carrying the excess heat with it. Obviously, if you miscalculated how
much heat shield you would need, your craft would run out and you’d burn up. Redundancies would need
to be built into the rocket in the event of a malfunction while there was a human on board – a
rocket-powered escape vehicle was built into the spacecraft as kind of an ejector seat.
The whole process had to be thoroughly tested before they could try a manned mission.
The first effort in August 1959 did not go well. Due to an incorrectly installed power plug,
the first Mercury-Redstone rocket (known as Little Joe 1) only got about 4 inches off the ground,
before dropping back down to the landing pad. Future launches had mixed results.
Von Braun ran 20 tests in all between 1959 and 1961. Most of these tests were not crewed,
except for a few where trained monkeys and chimpanzees occupied the pod. Von Braun wanted
to be absolutely sure of success before allowing a human to go up in one of his rockets. While his
caution was excellent scientific practice, it came at a price. In April 1961, Russia beat America
to the punch by successfully launching astronaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit, making him the first man
in space. Von Braun’s first human launch came one month later, with astronaut Alan Shepard, although
this was still only a suborbital flight. 2-0 for the Russians, they got the first satellite into
space and now the first human into orbit, and the US was worried. Project Mercury ended up launching
6 human flights, two on Redstone rockets and 4 on Atlas rockets, all of which were successful.
And although they did not get into space “soonest”, as had been their goal, they learned
incredibly important things about launching rockets, enduring space, and surviving re-entry.
However, when NASA announced the Apollo program in 1960 with its intention to reach the moon,
it became clear that far more knowledge would be needed. Mercury had seen its final mission put
an astronaut in space for a day and a half, but a trip to the Moon and back would take 8 days.
Also, NASA decided the best way to get to the Moon would be to use the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous method.
The plan required them to perform perhaps the most difficult manoeuvre in space travel, docking with
an object in orbit. They hadn’t even achieved this around Earth yet, let alone the Moon.
The Lunar Orbit Rendezvous method consisted of a Lunar Module detaching from a Command and Service
Module, landing on the Moon, then meeting back up with the Command and Service Module,
which would then take all the astronauts back to Earth. Astronauts would also need to practice
doing “space walks”, in case work on the outside of a spacecraft became necessary during transit.
And finally, more practice would be needed with re-entry techniques, particularly touching down
at a preselected location on land (although in the Apollo missions this last idea was
dropped). On top of that, the Soviet Union was ahead, and America needed to catch up.
So, while the Apollo team set to work developing its rockets and modules, these extra challenges
were handed off to a support mission to work out. This mission was given the name “Project Gemini.”
Project Gemini, which launched 12 missions between 1961 and 1966,
built on the foundations of Project Mercury. The Gemini capsule was essentially a larger
version of the one used on Mercury, now able to hold a crew of two. The rocket used was a Titan
II, another adapted military missile redesigned for a new purpose of discovery.
Gemini also saw an expansion on that technology. For Project Mercury, the Mercury spacecraft could
do little to redirect itself once it had made it into orbit. If a space rendezvous
was going to happen, this would need to change. The Gemini spacecraft was given an Orbit Attitude
and Manoeuvring System (OAMS) to allow it to change its orbit and orientation while in space.
The Gemini spacecraft was also developed to be able to support a crew in space for longer.
By the launch of Gemini 5, astronauts were able to spend an entire week in space.
To play it safe, in later flights this time was extended to 14 days by Gemini 7 – 6 more days than
would be required for a trip to the moon. While there was a lot of success with these missions,
there were some scares, too. Neil Armstrong flew on Gemini 8.
The purpose of this mission was to meet up with and dock with an uncrewed Agena Target Vehicle,
which had been launched earlier. The first part of the mission went smoothly, with the docking being
a success. But while Armstrong and his co-pilot David Scott were still in the Target Vehicle,
they noticed that the ship had started spinning in space. This could be catastrophic – if the
spinning ship hit their Gemini ship while the two attempted to undock, it could cause fatal
damage to their craft. Furthermore, they were not sure exactly why the craft was spinning.
If a thruster was firing when it shouldn’t be, then it would be using up valuable fuel – fuel
that was needed to orient themselves the correct way for re-entry. If they were not
facing the right way, the heat shield would not protect them from the incredible heat generated.
The two astronauts worked quickly, and by firing one of the opposing thrusters they were able to
slow the two crafts enough that they were able to get back into the Gemini craft and just about
undock safely. They realised then that it had been one of the Gemini craft’s thrusters that had been
firing. Both astronauts were close to passing out, however they managed to fix the fault,
and using the re-entry thrusters, Armstrong calmly got the craft back under control,
stopping its tumble. He managed it with only 30% fuel remaining.
Moments like this reinforced the importance of being able to perform EVAs, or Extra-Vehicular
Activities. And so, Gemini also saw missions where astronauts practiced going outside of their
spacecraft to perform checks. Buzz Aldrin set the record for this, performing a 5-hour 30-minute
spacewalk, proving that (with proper rests) work outside of a spacecraft was indeed possible.
This also gave engineers ideas on ways they could make it easier – such as installing
handholds at certain places on the craft. All in all, it was through the work on Gemini and
Mercury that the foundation was laid. Thanks to the discoveries made on both of these programs,
NASA was making strides in its objectives to reach the Moon. It was also starting to close the
gap between it and Russia. It would now be up to Apollo to take the last steps. Join me in the next
episode where we will look at the first Apollo missions that led up to the famous Apollo 11.
Want a more in-depth look into the Gemini Program, and how it helped prepare the way for Apollo?
Well, there’s a great documentary on MagellanTV called ‘Gemini and Apollo’
that looks at the individual missions in detail. Some of these missions didn’t all go to plan,
and actually the Apollo mission was nearly scraped altogether due to the problems that were faced. If
you want to check this documentary out for free, as well as gain access to MagellanTV’s entire
library of documentaries, you can use my link in the description to get a month’s free trial.
I really liked this documentary, and there are thousands more on their platform about a host
of different topics which you can watch on nearly any device, so I really recommend checking it out.
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