Gemini 8 Full Mission - Launch, Docking, Problem, Agena, Neil Armstrong, Spin Footage, 1966
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- Documentary about the Gemini VIII mission, entirely based on historical narration, extensive mission audio and footage. The full mission is covered, showing training, launch, orbital operations, Agena docking, recovery and results.
Gemini 8 (officially Gemini VIII) was the sixth crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program, launched on March 16, 1966. Flown by pilot David Scott and command pilot Neil Armstrong, the flight marked the second time a U.S. civilian flew into space and the first time a U.S. civilian flew into orbit.
The mission conducted the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but also suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. spacecraft which threatened the lives of the astronauts and required an immediate abort of the mission. The crew returned to Earth safely.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Crew, Training and Mission Objectives
10:55 Simulated Flights
13:38 Gemini-Titan 8 Launch
17:14 Liftoff
22:22 Orbital Maneuvers
23:42 Agena Rendezvous and Docking
27:55 Thruster Anomaly
29:36 Emergency Undocking
31:48 Abort and Reentry
34:09 Recovery
35:38 Press Briefing and Astronaut Return
39:20 Mission Results
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The footage was AI upscaled (Topaz AI) on some segments, besides the usual color correction. Ambient audio was recreated based on historical elements. Sequences are shown in proper mission context as much as possible.
Historical narration (from mission commentary and NASA documentaries and progress reports) is used in an attempt to capture the feeling of the times. Language and attitudes should be seen in that context.
Research, cleanup, editing, and processing by Retro Space HD.
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A special thanks to the channel supporters ( / retrospacehd ):
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The thruster stuck on because the engineers put the on/off solenoid to activate the thruster on the ground wire instead of the power lead. They never considered that if the ground wire broke, and came into contact with metal, that the thruster would activate and could not be stopped. That problem was solved by putting the on/off solenoid on the power lead. They may have had a solenoid on both wires. Neil Armstrong saved the American space program twice in his career as an astronaut. Once on this mission and again when he found that the lunar landing spot programmed into Apollo 11's computer was a boulder field. He disconnected the autopilot and hand flew to a suitable landing spot. While maneuvering, he got perilously close to running out of fuel and should have aborted but made the command decision to continue. And the rest is history!!
This comment deserves more likes
There was no such thing like "auto pilot" as we know today. Computer was adjusting thrust and attitude according to pre-entered and computed data, including various info from other devices/sensors on LEM. It was running constant computional loop, but during landing procedure, pilot can use joystick to feedback suggestions including attitude, speed and of course landing place. It was just most "basic" fly-by-wire (in todays terms and technology at least).
P S and he shouldn't abort. He still had dozen or so seconds left (probably much more in reality), before ejecting landing part of space craft, cancelling landing and boosting back to CM .
Absolutely amazing pilot and engineer.
@@o_manam I totally agree with you! On my own behalf, I will add that he was a highly decent and modest person. In 1994, Neil Armstrong sent me an autographed photo of himself as a souvenir. Eternal memory to him.🙏❤ Wonderful video! Saint Petersburg, Russia.
@@override7486 Also, as I recall, Aldrin left the landing radar and one of the system (abort???) running at the same time. That caused the computer overload 1201 and 1202.
The Mercury and Gemini astronauts were my childhood heroes. They definitely had "the right stuff."
I wood have given more thumbs up if it would let me
Undoubtedly, Armstrong’s actions during this mission cemented his place in history as being selected to be the first man on the moon. It didn’t hurt him that he came off as humble and wholly professional; a perfect spokesperson for humanity.
Rightly so. That dude epitomized _”The Right Stuff”._ RIP Neil, you were a boss.
What if Deke had chosen Gordon Cooper as First Man?
Slayton always denied that there was any other consideration in picking the Apollo 11 crew besides following crew rotation and all evidence points to this being true. Not saying anything against Armstrong, but if they wanted more experience for the first moon flight, Armstrong wasn't the guy because his only flight lasted 8 hours. In addition, it made more sense to make either Collins or Aldrin the commander on 11 because both had more flight time than Armstrong and both also had completed long and strenuous EVA's on their Gemini flights while Armstrong had no EVA experience. He got the command because of seniority. He was a Group 2 and Aldrin & Collins were group 3 astronauts. It was that simple.
Slayton actually wanted either Frank Borman or Jim McDivitt to fly the first moon landing because they were considered the top two men in the astronaut corps. It was offered to Borman, but he turned it down, and it was considered too short a turnaround for McDivitt to fly Apollo 9 in March and then 11 in July. In theory, McDivitt & his crew could have been taken off of 9 and moved to 11, but it does seem to be reality that the crew rotation was pretty closely followed. It's more fun to think that the crews were made up according to some matching of personalities and assignments, but it actually and really was just the way the rotation worked out.
15:50 interesting - the movie First Man showed Neil Armstrong watching the Agena lift-off while walking along the gantry to the Gemini 8 spacecraft. I presume they would have had access to the audio we have while researching the movie. I guess it worked for the movie though - to show the Agena lift-off prior to Gemini 8. Great movie too.
Those from-air shots of the Gemini-Titan climbing through the clouds are just fantastic.
Armstrong became first commander of an Apollo landing mission. Scott became first CMP to do transposition-docking-extraction-redocking along with first CMP EVA; then he commanded the first all-up scientific Apollo mission. Slayton knew where to put his crews.
Hearing Jules Bergman's voice brought me right back to my childhood. Awesome video.
Bergman was the man back then.
I'm pretty sure that this accident and recovery by Neil Armstrong was one of the reasons why he was selected as the commander on the first moon landing. It showed he could handle a real emergency successfully. That is, he had the most "right stuff" of the astronauts who could have commanded the mission at the time. He also successfully survived the crash of the "pogo stick" LEM practice craft. Again, he acted appropriately in an emergency. Finally, the actual decent of the LEM to the moon during Apollo 11 was chaotic and had to be done manually by Armstrong, our "ace" astronaut.
Armstrong was the backup on Apollo 9. When Frank Borman Apollo was sent to the Lunar orbit mission Armstrong became the backup of Apollo 8. Pete Conrad lost his chance to be the Commander of the first Lunar landing mission.
@@Shell1950 Slayton was making sure his most experienced crews were aligned with the first lunar missions.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Armstrong actually had the least flight experience of any man in his group precisely because his flight was aborted. He had only 8 hours of flight time. He had considerably less experience than his two crewmates on Apollo 11. Collins & Aldrin also had EVA experience, which Armstrong did not. He was given mission command simply because of seniority, being a group 2 astronaut. That's how it works in a semi-military set up like NASA. Seniority trumps everything.
Slayton even admitted this in his biography (without directly saying it) when talking about the original Gemini 9 crew of Elliot See and Charles Bassett. He did not have a high regard for See's piloting skills and, in Slayton's words, assigned Bassett, who was his favorite of the group 3 astronauts, to See's flight because he thought Bassett could "carry See." And yet See was the assigned commander of the flight because he was a group 2 astronaut and Bassett was Group 3.
@@RRaquello "Armstrong actually had the least flight experience of any man in his group"
You forgnore Armstrong's military history and NASA test pilot work on the X-15. He also conducted the first manual docking--and then the first emergency undocking, and the first emergency maneuvers on-orbit, the first emergency re-entry, and the first emergency landing from space.
That made Armstrong NASA's most experienced pilot by 1966.
"He had considerably less experience than his two crewmates on Apollo 11. Collins & Aldrin also had EVA experience, which Armstrong did not"
Orbital EVA was not performed on the first lunar missions.
"He was given mission command simply because of seniority,"
The first two lunar missions had former commanders flying in subordinate roles. Apollo 9 had the same.
"a semi-military set up like NASA."
Nope, Slayton's semi-plans.
"See was the assigned commander of the flight because he was a group 2 astronaut and Bassett was Group 3."
That was Gemini. For Apollo, docking experience determined your promotion to commander.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver I'm not saying I agree with Slayton, but having read his book and, also, reading between the lines, he rated Armstrong & See at the bottom of their group because they were no longer active military pilots. So saying Armstrong had experience in the X-15 is almost irrelevant because that was as a civilian employee of NASA, which Slayton & Shepard and the other big shots pretty much disregarded . See was a test pilot, I believe for General Electric, and that was also discounted by Slayton. Unfortunately, in See's case, Slayton was probably right because if Bassett was flying that plane it's almost certain they wouldn't have crashed.
NASA was a civilian agency, but the guys running the astronaut office were military and ran it that way. And military guys are obsessed with rank & seniority. For instance, I can't think of a case where, in the line of command, an astronaut from a prior group was given precedence over an astronaut from a later group. Not even in Apollo.
There is one exception, if you take the Apollo line of command as Flight Commander-Command Module Pilot-Lunar Module Pilot, when, on Apollo 17, you had Cernan (group 3)-Evans (group 5) and Schmitt (group 4), but that was an exceptional case because group 4 astronauts weren't considered "real" astronauts, and also there was no point in sending Schmitt on a mission if he wasn't going to actually land on the moon. And even in this case Slayton wanted no part of Schmitt, having originally picked Joe Engle for the flight. Even in cases where Slayton considered the junior astronaut to be more capable, as with See & Bassett, he still had to follow rank/seniority/group precedence, even if it wasn't an actual rule.
I think people want to romanticize the selection of Armstrong, that he was picked because he was "just the right guy" and NASA knew this. I actually believe Slayton when he says that Armstrong just happened to fall in the right slot at the right time. Everything I've ever read about crew selection makes me think that's the way it really was. But people don't want to believe this because it's too mundane and the other way makes a better story.
Everything I've read about Neil Armstrong indicates that he was the very best astronaut for stepping first onto the Moon. Aviation, engineering, spacecraft expertise.... and small-town, down-to-Earth American personality/humility. He deserved to be a giant in history.
Thanks for this...! Great footage. Never seen over half of this..! And a HUGE thanks to NASA for taking/keeping this footage for posterity ..! How freakin awesome was Neil on his first Space mission in command at that . Electronic malfunction on his Gemini spacecraft , spinning rapidly out of control, and keeps ice cool in working the problem to a safe condition....! Best Astronaut man..! Cheers
As we've come to expect, another great mission overview. Please keep them coming.
It can't be said enough, you rock and this should have more subs
This video seemed to be spliced together flawlessly! Thank you...
I never realized they had been docked for almost a half an hour before the problems began. Everything I've seen made it look like it happened almost right away. I love these little details.
The mission that probably put Armstrong near the top of the candidate list for the first Moon landing.
Not until Gus died.
@@dalethelander3781 Hence why I said 'near the top'.
Along with his quick thinking flying the "flying bedstead", that simulated the LM landing.
When it malfunctioned, Neil pushed the eject button, and parachuted to safety.
@@dalethelander3781 Grissom's proposed Earth orbit 'shake down' mission of Apollo 1 that of course never happened, was the equivalent of what Apollo 7 did. So if you look at Slayton's rotation system - backup/miss two/prime/miss two/backup etc, theoretically Grissom's next mission would have been Apollo 13.
@@gunternetzer9621 Which should've been Gordon Cooper's mission as Tom Stafford's Apollo 10 backup. But the slot was given to Alan Shepard, then the crews of 13 and 14 swapped flights.
It was well-known within the agency that Slayton wanted Grissom to be First Man. He wanted a Mercury 7 astronaut for that role, and only Grissom and Cooper were still on active duty, and Slayton and Chris Kraft weren't enamored of Cooper. (Shepard wouldn't regain flight status until 1969, Cooper was consisered a "lazy astronaut" despite bringing Faith 7 and Gemini V back without fly-by-wire. He had no interest in learning how to operate Apollo's DSKY.) Besides, there was no real personnel rotation. Slayton put crews together based on their personalities and how well they got along.
Flying a shakedown with a Block 1 CSM never made sense as they weren't the ships that'd go to the Moon. They were perfect for the uncrewed Apollo 4 and 6 flights.
These videos are very well done. Thank you
My first memorie of the space program was themoon landing. I was 6 years old. It was only after my parents, my Dad, had me stay up to watch a snowstorm on tv. I guess i was hooked afterwords. I have always encouraged space exploration ever since. After many years we have finally landed back on the moon. Unmanned. We need more space exploration.
Amazing footage. Thank you
This is one of my favorite missions, thank you for making a video of it.
Man, that AI upscaling really butchers the switches on that IBM computer control panel at 11:15
Funny how they had to stand around for the photographers in the hot Florida sun without air conditioners. But indoors they were connected to their air conditioners.
Outstanding!
It speaks volumes to the absolute coolness of both Armstrong and Scott that it doesn’t appear a single 4 letter word was uttered during the struggle with the spacecraft!
The EVA planned for Gemini VIII included an astronaut maneuvering unit (AMU) worn by Dave Scott moving away from the capsule on a tether. That would have been something!
Gene Cernan had one on 9, but couldn't use it. He overheated himself trying to hook the AMU up.
In Hindsight, having that thing on the 2nd spacewalk was sheer Lunacy
@@pjimmbojimmbo1990 It seemed easy at the time. The Soviets had not yet revealed all the problems they had with their 1st EVA, and Gemini IV's brief EVA went fine.
Maybe that's why Scott got an EVA on Apollo 9.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver
Scott barely stuck his head out Gumdrop's Hatch. The original EVA Plan was to have Schweickart get out of Spider, and make his way over to Gumdrop, to prove that in case of a failure to dock, or the tunnel couldn't be opened, the crew could get back to gumdrop. Unfortunately Schweickart had had a bout of Space Adaptation Sickness, and Mission Control was still quite worried about it. If Schweickart had tossed his Cookies during the EVA, he most likely would have died.
0:29 Hilarious. IF that was today they would be suited up from head to toe with glove and not using a chair to prop up the instrument. Great video
Nice
Interesting footage, however walk-out images on 16th March 1966 remain the best source to make out which Longines-Weems aviator watch Neil Armstrong wore exactly at his right wrist.
This large crown Weems aviator watch belonged to his childhood hero James "Jimmy" Mattern and later during Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong even took a flight logbook of Mattern to the Moon !
#MoonwatchUniverse 🧐
It still amazes me how powerful the rocket must have been to carry the massive balls on those astronauts.
Same recycled joke on all videos like these.
same recycled comment on jokes on all videos like these@@You.Tube.Sucks.
These astronauts were picked, in part, due to their average height and build....I'm sure oversized genitals would of disqualified them...
P.S. You.Tube.Sucks. is correct...find some new material, champ...
It's a good thing Scott wasn't doing his Spacewalk when the Thruster went Rouge. That entire Buck Rogers Backpack ride on the 2nd Spacewalk was in hindsight, a very bad Idea, as proven by Cernan on Gemini 9
The got ambitious after Ed White's EVA. Ed White made it look easy, but even he had problems. There was a problem with the hatch, and I believe there was a problem with the umbilical that gave him a hard time reentering the spacecraft. It was all a matter of the way they trained. I don't think Dave Scott, who was one of the strongest and fittest astronauts, next to Ed White, would have had any easier a time than Gene Cernan. It took them a long time to get smart about the tools and training methods. Gemini 12 was where they got it all right, with the neutral buoyancy training and the extra handholds...
Best team ever!
There was a mention that "neither astronaut experienced any sensation of being disoriented". I thought they both said they were at the limits of spin rates to even see?
They did. And they were. They were never going to admit that to the public at the time, though. These were PR films edited together.
When news 📺broke about the near disaster for David Scott and Neil Armstrong👨🚀👨🏼🚀 the TV program they interrupted was Lost in Space!
Where is the part of Major Nelson meeting Jeannie.
did they ever manage to shut off the thruster?
Would you do Titan 1 launch.
Adventure.
3:56 lmao he actually said "nuculer"
And he almost certainly understood physics much better than you? What’s your point?
Wait. Armored personnel carriers to transport astronauts? What was wrong with the panel van?
Yeah, the spacecraft never approached a structural strain but the boys almost passed out because of G- Forces!
Per “penitenza” , ripassatevi tutto lo “scibile” disponibile per gentile concessione dei “Talebani del Web” .. Riguardo il primo aggancio nello spazio … Buona visione ..
Just think this all happened with less power than your smart phone
Less "power"? Guessing these vehicles couldn't be charged up with a simple wall outlet...
Good stuff! I love it! Especially the gum chewing smoke pulling cowboys at the end! An iconic yank propaganda movie of the time... pity the yanks haven't grown up yet.... year 2023.....
By "Yanks", did you mean the nation of 330 million people, as if we all share the same hive mind?
Speaking of growing up, maybe it is time to put away the comfort blanket. You know, the one you throw over the top of subjects you don't fully understand?
@@codymoe4986 Good point, well put, maybe I shouldn't generalise. In your opinion, how many of the hive are Not profit driven war mongers, who actually know there is a world outside 'merka?
Why ride in APC's to the rocket, as if it was going to blow up before they got on the elevator but they weren't worried about the trip up to the top?
Because the astronauts didn't drive themselves out to the pad.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver So just because they didn't drive it had to be an APC. Right.
@@johnclawed The APC ferried drivers, technical personnel, and the astronauts' boss to the launch pad. Learn facts before you post nutty ideas.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Ok I'll try to learn facts. I assume you answered in good faith so obviously you didn't understand the question.
@@johnclawed You should be able to figure this out for yourself. The APC was there to protect drivers and medical and technical personnel. Or do you consider them expendable? It was a precaution. Or does wild risk thrill you? Now stop being silly.
😁👍
The rocket looked like a giant bowling pin.
And, BTW, why is Gemini pronounced "GEMIN-EE"???
Both rockets are basically ICBMs with different payloads, so it may look kind of peculiar. And it's a Southern pronunciation hence Nasa facilities being in Alabama, Texas, Florida etc. Actually both were used so it gets confusing 😊
@@vaultsuit No, its because that's how the word is pronounced in Latin. It means "twins" (or something to that effect) in latin.
@@NghilifaLatin? In every country Latin words are pronounced differently.
@@vaultsuit lol?? Latin is a language, a construct. Used to communicate. With other people. So it's somehow standardised/formalised. Or you're just talking about slang or accent...
@@override7486 I'm Polish and "our" Latin (used by lawyers and showboats) is totally different - semepr feedelis not faydelis etc
Lol 😂
Historical footage, yes that has been altered.
Man those are some fugly cars. Funny Americans think those are pretty.
Altered? What do you mean? It's not Red Alert or Fallout in alternative reality...
@@override7486 Yes, it has been altered. Look at the parts when they are filming mission control. It doesn't look right. I don't know if it has been through some sort of processing but it has a weird look, like it has been painted or something.
" It's not Red Alert or Fallout in alternative reality..."
This doesn't make sense it has been disregarded.
@@minirock000 AHH, you're taking AI upscaling artifacts, not actual changes to video content... Makes sense
@@override7486 AI is trash.
Be careful how much Rogan you watch you might get second hand shrooms
Just think this all happened with less power than your smart phone
My phone has rocket batteries???
Where is the part of Major Nelson meeting Jeannie.