NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Gene Cernan, NASA astronaut, aviator, and engineer who was part of Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17, part 1 of 3

www.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. You You know if we go back in time when President Kennedy declared and challenged this nation go to the moon

We had a grand total of 16 minutes of space flight experience Alan Shepherd was the only American in the space and he hadn't even been in orbit And the president says we're going to go to the moon and you start ticking off all the things we had to do you know how long could we work in space could we We walk in space could we run a voodoo in space could we live in space much less travel as far away as the moon and you know land on another planet we're a whole cadre of things that we had to learn how to do Mercury just sort of the rest of the mercury flights just sort of prove that we could get in orbit we could survive we could live there as long as a day And then we had this big gap the bridge if you will from Mercury to Apollo that had to be filled we had to learn how to do all the things to prove that they could be done before we could even begin to think about going to the moon on Apollo And Germany in its own historical context was perhaps as important as Apollo because without Germany there would have been no Apollo Now as a pilot and as an engineer are you an engineer I'm an engineer by yeah Purdue University I guess that's all about all we ever put out of theirs engineers

Were you excited by the challenge of Gemini as a pilot and an engineer? Well of course this is just as an individual I was challenged by that and excited about the opportunity to even fly but all of a sudden we were going up to do things after Mercury that had never been done not Notwithstanding they needed to be done for Apollo we were going up there and and could could to spacecraft warling around the surface at 17,000 miles an hour in different orbits all of a sudden round of And link up and even dock and touch each other and maybe cruise shake hands or change change vehicles could this happen could it be possible Could we get out of a spacecraft I guess one of my first and biggest experiences is what we now call spacewalking extra vehicular activity I was a third human being to get out of a spacecraft when I got out of a spacecraft on Gemini 9 to be with the intent of being out there for almost three hours And flying a buck Rogers backpack on the end of a hundred foot little string or tether around the world daytime and nighttime for at 17,000 miles an hour

We had we had a Russian Leonov who spent 12 minutes outside the spacecraft he spent four minutes getting out and eight minutes trying to survive and get back in and save his own life We had to add white out for 20 minutes the first American in space and it did a magnificent job but it was just the mech I think we're overcome by the pictures and the fact that Ed was floating around Came back in and as a result we didn't look closely at what he did do or didn't do we knew it was very difficult to get back in that small Gemini spacecraft but aside from that we never really really challenged the laws of Mr. Newton you know for every action there was an equal opposite reaction And now I was going to go out on Gemini 9 and I did go out in Gemini 9 and I was going to have to do legitimate work I did some tether dynamics and found out that the worst thing you do is be out there in the end of a string and end of a tether in zero gravity Traveling around around the world and you're just helpless out there because you're truly at the whims of nature

You can't go where you want to go you need a propulsion and need a stabilization system To do the job I had to do on Gemini 9 I had to turn valves I had to lift levers I had to basically assemble a whole flying backpack as we call it An astronaut maneuvering and I had to literally assemble it outside the spacecraft in zero gravity through a nighttime cycle where I had a little or no light And it was it turned out to be a near impossible task because we didn't anticipate the problems in retrospect How could we have not thought about the problems I would have encountered but we didn't And every time I push or turn a valve it would turn my entire body in zero gravity I had nothing to hold on to I had no no no golden slippers as we eventually designed so I could put my feet in to get some leverage to move these levers and valves And it was a very in retrospect somewhat of a hair raising thing and there were probably times where there were people down here on earth

Wondered whether I'd get back in because my heart rate was running at 170 beats a minute and we had an unwritten rule that we didn't talk about we laugh about now That if I wasn't able to get in Tom Stafford was just going to literally have to cut the cord and I might still be a satellite out there traveling through the sky 20, 30 years later Describe the experience of being out there you've come to it but you know I last time I talked to you about this but my heart rate was up But as it was falling I couldn't get back in Well let's you know I I went out and did some other dynamics for about 20 or 30 minutes quickly realizing that Hey the next guy that goes out here's got to have a propulsion capability of some kind to stabilize the system traveling side by side with the spacecraft I mean I was my own satellite in effect well I proved that to be the case but my propulsion system was was strapped to the back of the The other Germany spacecraft so I had to work my way back there with some handholds and get back there and when I got

Got back there about the only thing it only thing I had to hold on to was think of a bicycle handlebar And here I am 250 pounds in my space suit and all my all my gear and everything and in zero gravity It somewhat of a help was feeling quite frankly and I had now to assemble this backpack And I had to pull down the arms and twist them and turn on the oxygen and there were just a mirrored of physical Heavy physical work and labor to do and we take for granted gravity because we can do that kind of work with ease If something is holding our feet to ground nothing was holding me anywhere Notwithstanding the fact that we're moving through or around the earth or through space at 17,000 miles an hour Everything I touched on a spacecraft or twisted or turned or tried to move would touch me back And I would go tumbling back out in space and finally I just had to just handle and try and keep my body in position with the strength of my It's literally a strength of my wrist and my forearms. I did get overheated. We found out the Germany space suit was oxygen was flowing to keep me cool as well as to breathe and wasn't good enough.

My visor got fogged. I literally had back there a night time I had two little pen lights one actually didn't work so I couldn't see very well. My visor is fogged. The sun sets it's a night time. I indeed, in fact, ripped one of the interior insulation layers of the back of my suit. And when I was working during the daytime I could feel that that heat of the sun just barely threw my suit. It was a real challenge. I was determined and I finally did get in this astronaut maneuvering. I finally did get it assembled, checked out, strapped in, took off my lifeline, my oxygen abilical and communications abilical that led directly to spacecraft. And I literally put myself out there on my own. All Tom Stavard had to do was flip a switch and I would have been out there free to fly around space like we see perhaps in the comic strips of 50 years ago when we talk about buck Rogers. But it was, it was, it was one of the, I compare it in retrospect historically perhaps like Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was certainly not a failure. We had some problems but I don't ever look at Apollo 13 as a failure.

We learned a lot from that. We learned a lot about our own capabilities to accept the challenges of survival as on Apollo 13. And to succeed and in our own ingenuity. Apollo or Gemini 9 was basically the same way. I think with what it was a failure in that I didn't accomplish the mission I went out to accomplish. But without the problems I encountered on Gemini 9 without the ability to survive under some very strenuous circumstances as well as getting back in this spacecraft, which I say is always a problem. We would not have learned what we needed to learn about going on and stepping forward into Apollo. Because it was those kind of problems we could very easily have encountered in Apollo and had we not been ready for him, had we not seen him on Gemini 9.

We may have run any even problems that were far more significant than I did later on in the program. Terrific. That's what I would call about seven questions all answered in one answer. How you going to put it just got to be now? Can I? Right there. I'd love that. Thank you. What about Apollo? Oh yeah. Yeah, it's good. You got a lot of hurt. You're fine. Mark? He said that. Yeah, there were Navy guys, you know, obviously took an Army guy with a different sense of, we think about that. Well, when it came time for Gemini 12, we had Gemini 11, Dick Gordon, and Mike Collins and Gemini 10 and 11 basically substantiated the problems I had. We had a lot to learn, we had a lot to do.

It came time for Gemini 12, it was another mission to fly the astronaut maneuvering unit, and I'm the only guy who hadn't experienced it up there. At one time there was some thought about me flying again on Gemini 12, for just that reason. But then the conservatism seemed to take its play a big role in where we go from here. We had a lot of unanswered questions, rather than fly the MU on Gemini 12. We decided, hey, let's get very basic. Let's back off and start all over again. And let's find out whether we can find a way to anchor an astronaut's feet so he can begin to do things so he can get some leverage and move around. So the anchors, the shoes we were able to put our boots in were like gravity. In other words, it held us in one place. And you can put twist and push and all these things. We made Gemini 12 a very basic, if you will, easy mission. Buzz proved a lot of concepts that we made.

Just finish me up with Buzz, okay? Rolling? So what happened? Well, our goal was to go ahead and look back at Gemini 9-10-11 in the problems that Collins Gordon and myself had had. And find a way of making sure that we could do the test that might occur in the future. Let's solve the EVA problem. Let's not go out and fly an AMU again, which was sort of an Air Force experience. We'll get there at some point in time. So we re-engineered the EVAs on Gemini 12. And it made them quite simple. And we had a big old board with round holes and square holes and pegs and hooks and Velcro and lanyards and all kinds of things to find out whether we were capable in this big bulky suit in zero gravity to handle, to take a wrench and turn a bolt and put a hook on a lanyard or to put a pull or twist a peg or a valve. And so we just made this. This was an engineering board. It's something like it might do an engineering 101 so that you understand how all these things work.

We made one of those boards. We made it. We used to call it the monkey board. And we needed to know whether we could do all those things. We thought we could. Once we did a little, I came back and did a little underwater training because we wanted to find out how similar underwater or neutral buoyancy, which I never did before my flight, might be to the real world. It's not exactly nothing ever is, but it's close and it helped. And from that underwater training and from what I came back with, I said, we have to have some way of tying our legs down. There's where we get our leverage. We have to anchor our legs somewhere. Once we did that, I was convinced we could do almost anything. And he took all the problems that we had. They were all manifested in this monkey board and proved that we could put round pegs and round holes quite frankly. And we were satisfied after Gemini 12 that we were smart enough now to anticipate those problems we might have in zero gravity in terms of the laws of Newton that we didn't early on in a Gemini program.

Great. Let's talk about Saturn all of a test. You were there to describe the experience of that Saturn all of a test. And how important it was to move forward. Watching that first Saturn, I believe can best be described by those pictures I remember seeing replayed over and over again a water crown kite when he was behind this glass window in the press box there at Kennedy. I mean, this guy was really overwhelmed. I guess that's the way I felt. I mean, I just couldn't believe when you just see the Saturn 5, 38 stories high and a power that it was alive. The Saturn 5 had a life to it and a two-eye flew. It was a love affair. I call it a love affair. Each one of those things is still very near and each one of those things, power 10 Saturn 5, any power 17 Saturn 5, which both basically performed flawlessly each had a little problem.

But they were something special in my life. They were alive. They had a personality. They had vibrant. They were vibrant. And they were going to do something that was beyond comprehension. And when that first one rolled out, I mean, I felt, if you're looking up, we were halfway to the moon before we got to the top of it, before we ever lifted off the earth. And what a ride. Having a chance to ride what I call that beast, still a love affair with a beast twice. And the second time, and the only one ever ride it at night, was a real, real chapter in the history of my life as an astronaut. You're standing there. You're watching that thing. It's a test. What's it sound like? What's it feel like? Oh, it's overwhelming. You're three or four miles away. And the first thing you see is this massive explosion. I mean, there's smoke and fire and everything. You don't hear a thing. It's a massive explosion. And of course, just a split second later, that staccato noise just travels across the country. And it's ear-definity. And it's just staccato.

What amazed me till the end, even through Apollo 17, which I didn't see until after the fact, because I wrote it, was the thrust of weight ratio. In other words, it was so heavy that it just barely had enough thrust until it burned on fuel to get off the pad. And it used to sit, seemed like it sat there. It took like 15 seconds just to clear the tower that was supporting it on the pad. And it just sat there and rumbled and shook until it figured, well, I think I'm ready to go. And it won't even let back before that. The engine started some seven seconds before it ever lifted the pad, where it full thrusts some three seconds. So here you have full thrust, seven and a half million pounds. This magnificent machine is just shaking and trapping. And then when you let it go, it's just not sure whether it wants to. It just sits there because it's still too heavy. And the burns fuel, it gets lighter and lighter and lighter. And then it has to literally, you know, it's like a Roman candle, but it literally has to move over. So it literally moved over a little bit so you wouldn't scrape the tower on way up. And it seemed like a lifetime. It seemed like eternity. Watching it was an eternity just to see it clear the pad and get it on its way.

When you're flying it, when you're in it, some of the longest moments of your entire life waiting for those first 15 seconds to go by. Because if you lost one of those big five Saturn five engines on the first stage in that first 15 seconds, you're going to come back down. You're not going anywhere. You don't have enough thrust. Once you get past that first 15 seconds, you become light enough because you burn enough fuel that you'll make it. You'll get it. You'll get there. Not quite as efficiently, but efficiently, but you'll make it. But overwhelming. I tell you the Saturn five was as inspirational and overwhelming. Even when it didn't fly, you go out there the night before you launch in a spotlights around it. You stand down there and realize that you're going to be on top of that tomorrow morning and it's going to take you to the moon. The statement is almost as unrealistic to me today as it was a unbelievable to me today as it was 25 years ago.

Coulda, what shoulda, mighta, landed on 10? What shoulda, coulda, mighta, sort of describes Apollo 10. Apollo 10 fit in between the one everyone remembers Apollo 8, the first flight ever to go to the moon, Christmas Eve, everyone remembers that. And of course, everyone remembers Apollo 11. But in between there were two other flights called 9 and 10. Of course, 9 stayed in Earth orbit and checked out the lunar module for the first time, which was one of the most essential parts pieces of the spacecraft or the second spacecraft that we needed to land on a moon. And then then came Apollo 10 and it was time to go to the moon. As a matter of fact, Apollo 10 had been originally as a fourth Apollo flight was going to be the first attempt to land. But the lunar module, the lunar lander got sidetracked when Apollo 8 went to the moon without it. And so we had one last flight and the question was, if we send these guys all the way to the moon with the lunar lander, do we send them there to just check out the lunar lander in lunar orbit?

Do we do everything it is needed to do in order to land except land? Or if we subject them to the risk of putting them on a Saturn 5, traveling under 25,000 miles an hour and we go all the way to the moon, three day flight, and we put them in orbit around a moon, and we separate the lunar lander from the mothership the only way to get home. Do we not take just a little bit more risk and let them land? And that was a big controversy. What was your job on the planet? Well, I was a lunar module pilot. You know, I was sitting in the right seat of the command module, the mothership, and I had all the responsibility of what needed to be done on systems and so forth navigation systems in the command module. I was also a lunar module pilot with Tom Stafford, and we were the two guys, John Young stayed in the mothership, and we got into the lunar module, and we separated, and our goal was several fall. We want to check the lunar operation in the lunar thermal environment, which was quite different, hot and cold, nighttime daytime is going around the moon.

We want to check the descent engine, we want to check the descent navigation, we want to check the staging capabilities around the moon, the ascent engine. We want to check the landing radar, and also we wanted to check and verify the systems between mission control here on the ground, and the lunar module, because now mission control had to control two spacecraft. And not only were these two spacecraft, but these two spacecraft were quarter of a million miles away, going around an unfamiliar planet many times out of radio contact. So we had a lot of things to check out, and there was only one little thing left, and that was about 47,000 feet from the low orbit we got into to eventually landing on the moon. Now, you know, could a water show the might of, we probably did the right thing by doing everything needed to be done. Checking out everything, because we found a few things that might have given Apollo 11 trouble, or we might have had trouble with that we chose in the land.

We probably did the right thing in retrospect, because Apollo 11 was a success. It was our first try, and it was a success. So I don't have any regrets, close only counts and horses, but let me tell you, Apollo 10 was a spectacular flight. We not only painted that line in the sky for Neil to follow, but our own flight, going that far away, going to the moon for me for the first time obviously, flying at lunar module, going on down in a landing profile, looking down there, I felt, I think I even said it down, I felt like I had to pick up my feet, because we were going to scrape the top of the mountains. I mean, we were down among them. We were just sort of almost, what it felt like was almost, weren't quite, but almost flying through those canyons around the moon. And we took some important pictures of the landing side for Neil, checked out the landing radar, checked out all the capabilities in the moon, we had a few problems, we went out of control ourselves around the moon, got a little hairy, probably more so than we went to the moon.