The Agena target vehicle—that Neil and Dave would rendezvous with—launched on an Atlas booster at three seconds past three. When he heard the rocket boom and roar, he stepped onto the walkway outside his room and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. It shrieked into the sky and the Agena popped itself into a one hundred and eighty five-mile circular orbit without blowing up. Gemini VIII was scheduled for an hour and thirty-four minutes later. He went back inside and lit a cigarette and sat down and smoked it. Twenty minutes later he turned on the squawk box.
This is Gemini launch control coming up on T minus seventy-four minutes and counting; mark; T minus seventy-four minutes and counting on the Gemini VIII mission.
The technicians, under Gemini Pad Leader Guenter Wendt, were busy in the white room during the final phases leading up to hatch closure. Finally, at four forty-one and two seconds, Gemini VIII left the pad for orbit. Harrison’s heart stuck in his throat and he opened a Budweiser that foamed onto the floor.
Over the squawk box he heard Dave Scott say, Guenter Wendt? I vonder vere Guenter Vendt?
Harrison finished his beer and opened another.
You’re looking good, VIII.
How about that view?
Coming up on five minutes.
Boy! Here we go!
Harrison got up to find the potato chips. He took another beer from the fridge and added more. He sat back down and felt a deep misery. The mission proceeded right on the book. He knew every stage, every task, every burn. They rendezvoused with the Agena.
Outstanding job, coach!
Way to go, partner!
Boy, that was really slick.
The two spacecraft, a hundred and fifty feet apart, flew around the Earth at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour, passing in and out of contact with NASA’s global tracking stations that relayed communication and data between the spacecraft and Houston. Harrison listened as Armstrong flew the spacecraft around the Agena, inspecting the vehicle for launch damage.
Man, it flies easy.
Really?
Nothing to it.
Harrison lit a cigarette and cracked open another can. The crew were given the go-ahead to dock with the Agena before they passed into the darkness of the next night. Harrison sat forward, ear cocked toward the squawk box, sweating the taxing maneuver. The spacecraft eased closer to the Agena. Jim Lovell, the CAPCOM for the mission, gave the final go to dock.
Flight, we are docked. It really is a smoothie.
Roger. Congratulations. That is real good.
The spacecraft, now coupled with the Agena, moved out of range of the Tananarive tracking station and into another communications dead zone. Harrison found half a bottle of scotch on the side table. He held the neck to his lips and drank. The squawk box spat static and Harrison fell asleep.
Scott’s urgent voice jarred him awake.
We have serious problems here. We’re […] we’re tumbling end over end.
Holy shit.
He sat up, groggy.
We’re […] disengaged from the Agena.
Harrison grabbed the box and listened. What the hell was—
We’re rolling up and we can’t turn anything off.
The spacecraft was spinning wildly out of control.
Continuously increasing in a left roll.
Armstrong’s voice, clipped, calm.
Shut down the main thrusters! Harrison said.
We have a violent left roll and […] can’t […]
[…] can’t fire […] we have a roll […] stuck hand control.
Shut them down! Harrison said.
The spacecraft spun faster until the motions began to couple. Holy shit, Harrison thought: pitch and yaw and roll! It’s inertia coupling; inertia coupling carried into space. I gotta cage my eyeballs, he heard Armstrong say, as Gemini VIII tumbled like a gyro at three hundred and sixty degrees a second, and he wrestled with the stick.
Stand by.