Explosion on board. The interview is from the Oral History Program at the Johnson Space center. This is the Johnson SpaceCenter Original history project, may 25th, 1999, at the Johnson Space center. When you were a little kid, you saw a rocket go off and you said i want to do that . Is it that simple or that complex . You know, i was interested in rockets and astronomy long before the glenns and the shepherds of the world could spell rocket. I was interested in it way back in high school. I went to try and build some rockets. I wanted to be a rocket engineer, as a matter of fact. I wrote to the American Rocket Society at that time which is now the aaia or Something Like that, and i said i want to be a rocket engineer, and they wrote back and said you need to go to i. T. Or cal tech, and i couldnt afford either so i got an rotc appointment to wisconsin and then from there i went to the Navel Academy and then i got the flight training. I became a naval aviator, and low and behold in 1958 nasa was formed and they were looking for astronauts. So i was one of the original 110 people selected to go for interviews. Lets go back to your Naval Academy days, you almost didnt go, is that right . That is right. I had two years at wisconsin. I informs a Naval Aviation program after world war ii. Have been the most important project in this century. I became the first alternate that usually doesnt make it, are and i got orders for the physical to be inducted into the academy if you so desired. And then i said should i go to the academy, and the Young Marines just back from the war said dont do that, you have two years of college, and you have navel aviation, and if you go back you will have to start over again, and you might not get back into aviation, and then there was an old captain there and he said if you want to make the navy your career, get yourself back in the academy and that is what happened. I term paper, my first term paper, i wrote on the development of the liquid fuel rocket, and i was one of the first 50 because i was so interested in going back into aviation they selected 50 people to teach at the academy, and that september i was transferred down to pensacola. What kind of planes did you fly . We flew snjs which was the basic trainer. All of the way up to landing on a carrier with the snjs, and we did formation and night flying and basic training, and then i was transferred from there to kingsville actually, corpus christi, and i did instrument training, and my advanced training was in a model aircraft, and then i got my wings. I was selected to go back into jet training. In those days, jet training was the epitome of everything. Did you enjoy flying jets . Yes, i still enjoy flying jets if i can get my hands on one. After training my first assignment was to a squadron called vc3, and i found out it was a night fighter squadron. I said, you know, i am having trouble flying in the daytime, and you want me to go out at night . It was great training and a great experience and i learned an awful lot. Anything compare to the first night landing on a carrier . Nothing. Night flying off a carrier separates the men from the boys, the take off into a black void with no horizon, and we didnt have modern techniques like a mirror system, you had to come in low and you had a guy with paddles and a lighted suit. Thats how we did it in those days. At what point did you hear about nasa trying to select people to be astronauts and then do that . Some of my contemporaries had gone through a thing called test pilot school. And i thought that would be a interesting thing to do so i applied for test pilot school. I went, and just as i graduated from school, nasa was formed. They were talking about putting a man in space. They put out at this time secret orders to all the people who both the air force and navy thought were qualified, and nasa has certain criteria they went by. I just finished the school and that was one of the criteria you had. I got in the original selection. How far did you last in that . I got down to the last 32 people, and i was one of the people through all of the interviews, sent out to to the what was the name of it . Well, anyway, there was a big hospital out there, loveless clinic. That was the name of it. We went through our physicals, and today i just finished a physical, but that physical was not like everybody had done before. What they did to us was unknown to the medical profession. They knew that they had guniea pigs. I went through there, but when i got there the next selection was to go on to a second group at right Patterson Air force base. We had more tests and things like that. And the doctor called me and said youre finished and i said why . Am i not accepted . No. No. And he said are you not accepted . And i said what is wrong, and they said you have a high billy reuben. Too much pigment in your blood, and i was very dejected. I missed out on the second selection. So this liver problem, it was a minor thing, and so what . So it was a relatively minor thing. Buzz aldrin had the same thing, but there was a unique aspect to that physical. I got back to the squadron and i got a set of orders to go back out to wright patterson. My skipper said these orders are probably not correct, and they said maybe they dont know what the story is, and i said i am taking them. I went out there and they were sort of expecting me. And they were all getting together, and they said youre number seven. I said, oh, how great. The next morning we all went down to breakfast to get ready to start our physical and a fella walked in and said sorry im late, my name is gus grissom. And he was number seven and i was not supposed to be there. So they found out about it and i was going back to the squadron. How disappointed were you when you did not make that . Very much disappointed, because i was interested in rockets and things like that as a High School Kid and i didnt make it. There was no indication they were going to find any more guys at that time . No, no, nobody knew how far nasa would go or manning space was a possibility or not, and but thats what i always wanted to do. How long did it take you to get back in the loop and get rid of the liver problem . I was transferred down and i was going through training people and nasa called me down again, they said do you want to be in another round. They didnt know i was kicked out because of the physical. I said, sure. I put my name in again and i was selected again to go for the physical. This time at Brooks Air Force base. An air force physical, much more practical, much more looking at what is wrong and what is right and i had no problems passing it. Thats how i got selected in the second group. When you first went to the first selection, nobody knew what an astronaut was, and the second time you went they were the biggest heroes in the world . Thats true. I remember vividly the first time we had our interviews in washington, and we gathered at a hotel and we were talking about it, and al shepherd and wally was there, and wally said, i dont know if i want to get into this program or not, when i should go into a whacky program when i should be up at a hierarchy, and then i look back on that and that was really something. How did the original seven accept the next group . Very cool at first. These were the days when i guess there was the life world book contract, you know, and all that sort of stuff. You know, they were pretty high on the totem pole. They were well known, and then the nine of us walked in there, and then they warmed up after a while and after negotiations, we all circled the wagons with personal stories and all that. Did you get a corvette to run around in . After awhile yeah, it was not bad. We would buy in wholesale, and we would all drive it, and trade them in, i went through about three corvettes in my whole period. I remember pete and i lived at Ellington Air force base. Our wives were still in california and virginia beach, and he and i would share a boq room and i remember when he got that corvette, he had the top in the room and he was driving the corvette. I remember the car i got was just a little Station Wagon. I had a family and i needed a Station Wagon and thats what i got. How did your life change when you became an astronaut . Well, i dont think it really changed in a way. We got to be a little bit of a celebrity, but, you know, we didnt even do anything at first. I can recall the first time i went back to my high school and gave a talk to the high school and people, and i just went back to the school and in the back of the room after i was giving a talk, the mayor of milwaukee was there and he was sort of mad that i didnt stop by and pay my respect to the mayor before i went all of this protocol, i didnt know anything about it at the time. I thought, heck, i have not been in space, and people were asking me what is going on and that sort of stuff, so it was a little bit of being a false idol at the time. What was your job in the mercury days . I got down into the Space Program the first thing he did was to move down to Cape Canaveral and watch wally take off. And then we got into some of the simulators they had, and they were not too good at the time. We started doing some training. It amazes me now because i was just talking just today to a brandnew hes been here a year and never has flown, and he said i am still going through astcan. And i said what is that, and he said it is astronaut candidate training. I said what i went through, it was hit and miss, and we went out to the plants to learn pwtd systems themselves and thats how we got most of our training. When did you move into the Gemini Program and what was your job there . Well we got in the program and started learning about the spacecraft itself. But my first real assignment was as backup to gemini 4, and so we were training for that one. Its interesting, i met ed white and i didnt know it until one time we were down at the cape talking, and we traded cuff links and then we disappeared and it was years and years later when we were having beck first and he brings up the story, and i said, that was me. Its strange how our lives crossed and then disappeared for a while. That was a very big deal at that time. Yes, it was. And one of our jobs, we had an air bearing trainer, and we had a squirt gun to try and fire our way around and do something at that, and it was the initial attempt at eva work. Ed was out for a while but it was not until later on that we had problems with eva. How did you train for a spacewalk . How did you train for that first . Well, we, of course, we got on the suits and and we had this trainer, and its only two dimensional. You can shoot this little gun, it is like two little jets, and try to maneuver, yourself. It was the best they they could do at the time, and it was not until later on that we learned what to do. So the mission takes off, and what did you do once it left the ground . I was down at the cape watching the launch and then i flew back and was in the control center, you know, when he was doing all his work. It has been a long time, a reasonably long time since you got here. Are you ready to fly and go yourself now . Oh, yes, i got here in october of 62, and went up in 64 or Something Like that. And then my first flight was not until december of 65. You and frank get that first flight. Tell me about how you felt when they told you you were going to go . It was kind of interesting. Frank and i got the same rank and everything like that, but he got air force and got to be commander of it, and thats fine. But it was a twoweek mission, a medical flight. And two weeks with him anywhere is a challenge. But this flight we trained very hard and we had different types of suits. These were get me down suits. You couldnt go outside and should not open the hatch, but the very first takeoff was like it was flying us for a while. We got to use it pretty good, pretty fast, and we were able to get the idea of it. The spacecraft was tight, and the suits were hot, sweaty and bulky, and they didnt want us to take off our suits. These were the old days when they were worried about the leaks in spacecraft and things like that, and we knew the spacecraft was not leaking. Thats why you had to keep the suit on at all times, right . Yeah, it was a ridiculous regulation at the time, and i started to unzip the suit, and my rear end quite well. I mean, it was it was something. As a matter of fact, frank went, i think, nine days without having to go to the bathroom. Nine days . And he said, jim, this is it. I said, frank, you only have five more days to go here. How is space food in those days . Because i want to get back to space food later, but how was it then . Strictly freeze dried. And these little bitesized sandwiches had wax over them because everybody thought that they needed wax to keep it, and the wax would coat the roof of your mouth, and it tasted awful. I think one of the best things they had onboard those days was bacon bits. They would have a little square of bacon, and they would squeeze, you know, they would squeeze it down. That was very tasty. Then they had, you put water into various freeze dried food. Much like campers have these days, but you couldnt heat it. But it kept us alive for two weeks. Looking back on it now, all of that seems very primitive. At that time, it was state of the art. Thats right. And when i look back on how ultra, ultra conservative they were, for instance, john young got in such a flap by taking a sandwich up on a 3 1 2 or 4hour flight, you would have thought he had poison in it, he would have lasted for the whole flight. Now, of course, things are entirely different. Now, i know we they were afraid of anything floating around. Now we found out if the food is thick enough, you can eat it with a spoon. When you came back from gemini 7, what did nasa learn from these two experimental guinea pigs . They learned number one, man can live very nicely for two weeks, that the cardiovascular system would adapt readily. Blood flow slowed down, which is a normal case in a twoweek mission, and we were able to navigate ourselves across the deck. We didnt have this orthostettic hypertension where blood would drain down as soon as you stood up. The symptoms were there, but we could overcome that. I think basically it was the fact that, hey, space flight is possible longer than the three our fore hours they had been doing in the past. Was it as exciting as you thought it was going to be . Yeah, it was very exciting to me. I mean, it was tedious work, two weeks. We did have a break when they came up and rendezvoused with us, and they were up 24 hours and went back again, and we stayed up for the full time. It was quite rewarding. Stop just a second, will you please. Tape it rolling. All of these missions now, as we look back on them, look like they all fit together, they all get us to the moon. But at that time, you were trying to do something that had to be done before we woucould g to the moon, figure out if you could dock in space. The first thing we had do do was rendezvous in space. That would lend itself to docking and then we could take the module out. The very first one was the gemini 67. It was supposed to rendezvous and dock, but it, something went wrong with it on its takeoff, so it delayed their flight. They moved gemini 7 up to move instead, and when we were up there, gemini 6 was going to rendezvous. We couldnt dock with gemini 7. The first attempt to take off in gemini 6 resulted in a shutdown, which fortunately, wally did punch out. He was cool. The second time up, they did. They came up, i guess we were up there 11 or 12 days by that time. You could see them coming up. They came up at night. And we had a blinking light on. We could see the jets firing as they came up. We were like this and they were coming up just like this. Finally, we all rendezvoused. We stayed together. We each took turns flying around each other to see how nicely the spacecraft would control on Something Like that. So that was the very first big step towards the rendezvous and docking, which was necessary for the flights, too. You then were cap com on 8. Yes. Right. And there was a problem. Talk about that problem. Well, gemini 8 had a problem, probably one of the first big problems. Unbeknownest to us while we were out of radio contract, a stuck thruster had occurred. Neil and dave scott were on that flight. Thought it might be the agina, and they were trying to somehow slow the thing down, it was starting to make them roll. And so they thought, well, we better get rid of it. They had already completed a rendezvous and docking, and so they j it increased and it turned out it was one of their thrusters that was firing, so they managed and they were very cool about this whole thing. They managed to pull the Circuit Breaker and get the thruster off the line and then using their reentry thrusters which were normally only used for reentry, they were able to slow the vehicle down and had to come back early. What happened in Mission Control . Whats going on around you while all this is going on up there and nobody is sure whats going on . Everybody is trying to think of solutions of what the problems are. The problem hit us all of a sudden because when they came back into radio contact, well, they said hey, i guess to use the old phrase, hey, we got a problem, and but i think they managed to jettison the gina and determine the problem, so it was sort of an aftermath at the control center because i dont think there was much that we could have done in the control center for a problem like that. If they kept spinning around faster and faster, they would have blacked out. This was, you realize after the fact, because you didnt know it was happening then, once they got around, you realized they had a very serious problem. Oh, yes. If they didnt correct the problem themselves, they would have been in deep trouble. Did that make you rethink anything about how safe or how unsafe this sort of thing is . No, ron, its surprising. In this business, that problem was over there. Nothing is going to happen to me. Everything is fine. Dont worry about it. Space flight is so interesting. The rewards far overshadow the risk, so that was my feeling. That kind of a test pilot mentality permeated everybody at nasa, did it . I think so. I think the people who want to become astronauts, at least in those days, both of us were test pilots in those days, had that