David J. Shayler - Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps into the Void

The space race was heating up in the early 1960s. President Kennedys famous speech in September of 1962 dropped the official flag on the start of the formal race to the Moon. Sputnik and Yuri Gagarins flight were just the Soviet equivalent of a teenager revving up the engines of his hot rod at the starting line while glancing over to his competitor; the American kid. But the challenge was accepted, even though the kids car was a jalopy in comparison.

A couple of years after Gagarin, in 1963, the Americans completed Project Mercury, but the Soviets began launching people into space only days apart; even a woman! By 1964, it became a race between the two-man Gemini spacecraft and the three-man Voskhod spacecraft. Then, by 1965, it became a race between who could accomplish a rendezvous and who could conduct an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), now known by the public as a spacewalk.

On March 18, 1965, the Voskhod 2 spacecraft carrying Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov was launched. On the second orbit, Leonov conducted the first EVA. It was only short, as it was plagued with serious problems not publicly known at the time, even in the Soviet Union. Many years later, I had the opportunity to meet with Leonov personally and discuss his suit problems. At this point in the race, the Soviets beat us to this milestone, just as they had beaten us to others in the race to the Moon.

Less than a week later, on March 23, 1965, the Americans proved that the Gemini spacecraft was a great design, as was the Titan II launch vehicle. Gus Grissom and John Young checked out the spacecrafts new capabilities over three orbits. The following week, the Manned Spacecraft Center Director, Robert Gilruth, convened a group of experts and decided that the next Gemini flight would conduct a full EVA; not just standing up on the seat with the hatch open, as was the original plan. This would require a new piece of equipment called the Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit (the HHMU, aka the jet gun) and involved more planning as well as mission rules should anything go wrong.

GT-4 was to be a mission of relative endurance, as it would be longer than all of our previous manned flights combined. It was also the first mission flown from the new Houston Mission Control Center. Due to the long mission duration, the MCC would require three shifts of flight controllers. The Red Team Flight Director was Chris Kraft, the White Team Flight Director was Gene Kranz (his first mission as a Flight Director) and the Blue Team Flight Director was John Hodge.

Even before Leonovs EVA, Ed White had been training for an EVA of his own. It wasnt until after GT-3s successful flight that Chris Kraft advised Gene Kranz, Head of the Flight Control Operations Branch, that an EVA was being considered and that Gene should secretly begin developing the mission rules. This activity began in early April and a special subset of Mission Rules, called Plan X, included a rendezvous with the Titan boosters second stage as well as the EVA.

(left) Manfred Dutch von Ehrenfried in 1961. Four years later, he served as Assistant Flight Director (Red Team) for Gemini 4. (right) Dutch von Ehrenfried in 2009. [Courtesy Manfred von Ehrenfried].

While I was the coordinator for the main Mission Rules document, I didnt get the word about the EVA until I was asked to attend a secret meeting with the EVA team. One day in May, I attended a meeting with Ed White, General Bollander from NASA Headquarters, a Crew Systems engineer and another man from the Engineering Department.

We went over the Plan X rules and I reported the results back to Kranz. On May 10, Kranz called in all of the Capcom flight controllers who were deploying to the remote sites around the world and gave them the sealed Plan X package, with instructions not to open them until they got instructions from him. If no instruction was given, they had to be returned unopened. On or about May 27, the go for EVA came down from NASA Headquarters and all the flight controllers were advised and thoroughly briefed.