posted 06-05-2016 06:59 AM               

Space Cover #371: Gemini 9A at 50 – The Spacewalk from Hell

This cover was hand cancelled June 5, 1966 at Cape Canaveral, and carries a Centennial Cachet commemorating Gene Cernan's spacewalk that day. The cachet shows him flying free with the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit (AMU), and notes that difficulties prevented the AMU's use. In his autobiography, Cernan calls this "The Spacewalk from Hell."

Fifty years ago today, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan orbited the earth in Gemini 9A preparing for Cernan's ambitious spacewalk. At that point in time, Cernan's would be the third ever spacewalk, behind Alexei Leonov and Ed White. On White's approximately 20 minute spacewalk, he had a handheld propulsion gun to help him maneuver outside the spacecraft. Cernan's first objective was to test out maneuvering around the spacecraft without propulsion, using his umbilical cable to help stabilize himself and move about. What he found was that in the zero gravity environment on-orbit, the umbilical's stiffness and memory fought almost every attempt at using the umbilical to his advantage. He got fatigued from this objective and rested for a few minutes by the hatch before moving on to the second objective.

The second objective was for Cernan to move around to the aft end of Gemini 9A, don the Air Force's AMU, and free fly himself around the Gemini using connected by only a thin safety tether (like illustrated in the cachet above). Cernan went aft, maneuvering around unexpected sharp edges where the Gemini had separated from its Titan II booster. Upon reaching the AMU, one of his two worklights did not function. The AMU required a lot of tedious unfolding, telescoping its arms, making life support connections, etc., that seemed to have worked well in ground testing. But on-orbit, with less light, few handholds, and a stiff spacesuit, Cernan found that every motion to don the AMU resulted in other unwanted problems. His spacesuit life support system could not keep up with his exertions and his faceplate fogged over. The only way he could see was to clear a small patch on the faceplate using his nose. That coupled with ratty communications caused Stafford to tell Cernan to scrub the AMU effort.

So Cernan disconnected from the AMU and worked his way back to the hatch, nearly blind from the faceplate fog. Then came the tedious process of getting himself sat back down in his seat, in a stiff spacesuit, and closing the hatch down. Cernan describes the process as trying to sit down with steel pants on. Fatigue, muscle cramping, and faceplate fog complicated the process. He finally got in and got the hatch closed, thus ending the two-hour "Spacewalk from Hell" fifty years ago today...