Word: staffords
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...October, when an Agena rendezvous rocket "backfired" and disintegrated in space, Schirra and Stafford were left sitting in Gemini 6 atop a Titan II on a Cape Kennedy launch pad. They were all dressed up with no place to go. Last week their first attempt to launch was frustrated when a monitoring-cable plug was accidentally jarred loose from the Titan II's tail, causing an automatic shutdown of its engines only two seconds before liftoff. Later investigation disclosed that the engines would have shut down anyway-on either of the first two launching attempts. Workmen had forgotten...
Blue Lights. After Gemini 6 was jockeyed into a nearly circular orbit 170 miles above the earth and only 17 miles below Gemini 7's flight path, Copilot Stafford caught his first glimpse of 7's blue acquisition lights pulsing in the blackness above the South Atlantic. "Spotted Gemini 7 at 12 o'clock high," he reported...
...final major thrust that moved his ship up toward Gemini 7's circular orbit, Gemini 6 was completely on its own, freed from direct guidance by Houston, largely dependent on its on-board computer, its radar and Command Pilot Schirra's "eyeball" maneuvering. Both Schirra and Stafford literally had their hands full. Schirra's left hand was on the OAMS (Orbital Attitude Maneuvering System) translation stick, which controls Gemini's 85-Ib. and 100-lb. thrusters, and is-in NASA parlance-"direction oriented." When he wanted to move forward, he merely moved the stick forward; when...
...casual Wally Schirra, who, at 42, is the oldest astronaut flying. It was his cool and seasoned performance during the abortive Sunday launch of Gemini 6 that made the midweek triumph possible. Had he panicked and pulled the Dring ("chicken switch") that would have ejected him and Copilot Stafford from the Gemini capsule, the mission could probably not have been sent aloft on time. His superb piloting of the capsule, perfected in long hours of practice in the Houston docking simulator, and his nearly on-target splashdown near the carrier Wasp were reminiscent of his first space flight...
Schirra's quiet but effective copilot, Tom Stafford, 35, is a topflight aeronautical engineer. His rapid slide-rule calculations supplemented the information supplied by the ship's on-board computer and helped keep the crew and the men in Houston on top of the spacecraft's rapidly changing position. Also an Annapolis man, Stafford decided to make his career in the Air Force, has written two handbooks on flight-testing programs...