Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown
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Eight more Gemini missions followed through November 1966. Despite problems
great and small encountered on virtually all of them, the program achieved
its goals. This especially was the case in the development of rendezvous and
docking procedures necessary for the successful accomplishment of the lunar
landing commitment. For example, Buzz Aldrin, selected in the third group of
NASA astronauts in 1963, had a unique impact in this area, given his Ph.D. in
astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aldrin had written
his dissertation on orbital rendezvous and he applied this knowledge to solving
one of the principal riddles of the Gemini program: how to accomplish rendezvous
and docking of two spacecraft in Earth orbit. 142 Acquiring the nickname
“Dr. Rendezvous” from his fellow astronauts, Aldrin worked more than the others
to develop the orbital maneuvers essential to the program’s success. During
Project Gemini, Aldrin became one of the key figures working on the problem of
spacecraft rendezvous and docking in Earth or lunar orbit. Without solutions to
such problems, Apollo could not have been successfully completed. Rendezvous
techniques remained largely in the realm of theory until Aldrin began to work
on the problem. In 1963 and 1964, Aldrin worked hard to convince flight operations
leaders that a concentric rendezvous would work. In his estimation, a target
vehicle could be launched in a circular orbit with the rendezvousing spacecraft in
a closer orbit to Earth. It would then take less time to circle the globe, he argued,
and then catch up for rendezvous. Aldrin and others worked together to develop
the trajectories and maneuvers that would allow the spacecraft to intercept a
target vehicle. 143
Moreover, Aldrin argued that a closed-loop concept that relied more on
machines than on astronauts could easily spell failure. Ground controllers
wanted to use radar and computers to guide the two spacecraft together from
the ground, making rendezvous essentially automatic. Should either the equipment
or procedures fail, however, the mission would be lost. Aldrin argued for
the astronauts as active participants in the process, even more involved than taking
action should the equipment malfunction. 144
Systematically and laboriously, Aldrin worked to develop procedures and
tools necessary to accomplish space rendezvous and docking. He was also central
in devising the methods necessary to carry out the astronauts’ EVA. That, too,
was critical to the successful accomplishment of Apollo. Techniques he devised
have been used on all space rendezvous and docking flights since. Aldrin also significantly
improved operational techniques for astronautical navigation star displays
for these missions. He and a critical ally, Dean F. Grimm from the Manned
Spacecraft Center’s (MSC) Flight Crew Support Division, convinced their supe­
142. See Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., “Line of Sight Guidance Techniques for Men in Orbital
Rendezvous,” Ph.D. Diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964. Later Aldrin legally changed
his first name to “Buzz.”
143. Hacker and Grimwood, On Shoulders of Titans, pp. 266–268.
144. “Preflight Training Plan for Fourth Manned Gemini Flight Crew (GTA-6),” NASA
Program Gemini working paper No. 5031, 23 August 1965. Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference
Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; Hacker and Grimwood,
On the Shoulders of Titans, p. 267.