NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Thomas P. Stafford, NASA astronaut, Air Force Officer, and Commander of Apollo 10, part 1 of 3

What do you think when Kennedy said we're going to go to the moon? Where were you? What went through your mind? Well, I was a student in the Air Force test pilot school at Edwards, and the first group of astronauts had already been selected. And I was ineligible for that, even though I would have liked to participate because you have to be a graduate of the school, and I was just a student in the school. So when he finally made the commitment to go to the moon, then I just... Sorry, good, fine, you can go. When Kennedy made the commitment to go to the moon and return a man safely in that decade, I was an instructor in the test pilot school at Edwards. Now, I was a student when the original Mercury 7 selection was under his process, and I was ineligible since I was not a graduate of the school at the time. But then I always wanted to go higher and faster, and I love flying. I like to go higher and faster, and that to me was the next logical step. But when he said, I want to go to the moon and back in this decade, I said, that's for me, and I want to apply for it.

Did you think it was crazy at the time? Did you think it was doable? Well, I knew it would be a great challenge. It would be a heck of a challenge. And yes, I wanted to do it. I didn't know exactly how we're going to get there. But, you know, again, this was only just a few days after our shepherds, Mercury shot that just went down range for a few hundred miles. And it was only a few, it was really less than a month after Yuri Gagarin's flight. Now, let's get right ahead to Gemini. Most people don't understand Gemini and how important it was. I called it the Forgotten Program. Could we have gotten to the moon by the end of the decade if it had not been for Gemini? Gemini was one of the key programs to go to the moon. Without having Gemini in my mind, there is no way we could have ever gotten to the moon. First of all, we had never done a rendezvous before. And then while we were on, I did that first rendezvous ever on Gemini 6. And the techniques that we worked out, you know, the backup techniques, if everything works right, you can probably work out an automatic system.

But what happens if the radar fails if you inertia the mic? We ran out of film on Alan. That was just a short roll. Perfect.