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Show r .. . 4 ' a -- 1f 4, . Nt V' VI , " " Al ' '. in 4? .... A movie camera records Armstrong's ejection from a the countdown. At 10 a m. on March 16, the Atlas rocket car: ying Gemini 8's Agena target began its journey into orbit. One hour ana 41 minutes later, Armstrong and Scott rode their Titan rocket skyward. During the next six hours, Armstrong and Scott pursued Agena four times around the world. Precisely planned firings of their Gemini thrusters changed their orbit until the Agena was clearly visible. Over Hawaii, Armstrong reported that they were 150 feet from their target and were flying formation with it. After inspecting the Agena for nearly half an hour, Armstrong closed in to perform the world's first linkup of two orbiting spacecraft. "It was a real smoothie," the astronaut radioed. Docking was complete and the two vehicles were stable. That condition didn't last. Suddenly the docked Gemini and Agena combination began to buck and roll like a rodeo mustang. Armstrong was convinced the problem lay with the Agena. He ordered Scott to shut down the Agena's control system while he used the Gemini thrusters in an attempt to master the wild ride. It didn't work. Scott reactivated the Agena several times, with some lessening of the bucking, but the gyrations could not be completely stopped. Both astronauts were puzzled. Then with Agena again shut down,- the ride became so violent that Armstrong became convinced of danger and blew the seal between the ships in an emergency undocking. Now the tumbling and twisting became severe. Freed of Agena's restraining influence, Gemimi 8 went into a wrenching roll and yaw that reached one full turn every second. Control was impossible. As the forces built up, Scott reached over to pull the circuit breaker supplying power to the Gemini thrusters. The motions steadied. The problem obviously was with Gemini. (Engineers later determined it caused a thruster that a to fire wildly. Thrusters on the Agena had been automatically try - short-circu- lunar-landin- ing to correct the unwanted motions.) Neil activated the small reentry thrusters in the Gemini's nose, and the craft responded. For the time Armstrong and Scott were safe. But under strict mission rules, activation of the reentry thrusters means a mandatory end to the mission. A few hours later, with Scott's space walk cancelled, Gemini 8 splashed down in a contingency landing area in the Pacific. Disappointed but alive, the astronauts returned to Houston. It was the only Gemini flight to have a true emergency, and the only manned spaceflight yet conducted that ended before the planned time. It also was Armstrong's only space flight to date. When Gemini ended in late 1966, long-await- ed Armstrong joined other astronauts training for Apollo. But even that training nearly meant the end for r. the potential was practicing the Armstrong critical phase of a moon landing with a specially designed Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) at Ellington Air Force Base, near Houston, in early May, 1968. It was his 21st g flying flight in the than more machine any other astronaut. Nicknamed the "Flying Bedstead" because of its resemblance to r, the LLRV Granny's uses a jet engine to of the force of remove gravity during training for g vehicle moments before it crashed and exploded. second, then darted rapidly to the left and stopped again. In the next four seconds, the LLRV gyrated over the runway. Its nose pitched sharply downward, then swung steeply upward and rolled to the right. "Better get out of there, Neil," r. shouted a But Armstrong was already on his way. Activating the power ejection-serocket (in its very first use with v w ground-controlle- at 'f.' TV-A- W I "3 safe 1A1V in moon-walke- weird-lookin- Km III ivr rr XI four-poste- Armstrong rehearses his role as the first man on the moon, gathering specimens of its surface for geological study at a later time. down-thrusti- five-sixt- hs moon-landin- g. A typical flight in the machine inclimb to 700 or volves a near-vertic-al 800 feet, then reducing jet power unof the vehicle's weight til counter-balanced. For the reis seven-minuof the mainder flight, the astronaut uses two lift rockets rockand 16 smaller attitude-contrets to glide through final descent, hover, and touchdown. five-sixt- hs te ol Armstrong's flight that day went according to plan for the first five minutes. Then films show the bedstead dropping vertically to a point near the ground, hovering momentarily, then climbing straight up to 200 feet. Still under Armstrong's control, the machine hovered for a a human subject), he shot sideways away from the crippled trainer. As he floated beneath his parachute, Armstrong watched the $2.1 million vehicle drop edgewise to the ground and explode. The astronaut touched down moments later, suffering only a few bruises from being dragged by his parachute. A NASA investigation board cited "a loss of attitude control" as the primary cause of the accident. This loss, according to the board, resulted from an early depletion of pressurizing helium in the fuel tanks caused, in turn, by gusty wind conditions requiring extra fuel use, and by Armstrong forgetting to shut off the throttle to his lift rockets as he neared a landing. Lack of warning was a contributing factor that "caught the pilot by surprise and undoubtedly added some confusion," the board said. It was the last time anything caught Neil Armstrong by surprise. Along with crewmates Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins, he has been training for the Apollo 11 moon landing for more than a year. If all goes well, he and Aldrin will be on the moon in a few days. And if something does go wrong weil, our first man on the moon has proved he has the quick reaction to handle any posand sible, emergency. self-contr- ol Family Weekly, July IS, 1 969 7 |