Returning to Earth without a splash!

This Gemini Tow Test Vehicle (TTV) was one of two vehicles made by North American Aviation for NASA in the 1960s. It was built to help develop a way to return astronauts to a piloted runway style landing. Landing on land was considered a preferred alternative to using parachutes to ‘splashdown’ spacecraft into the ocean – something that comes with significant risk, as well as considerable expense. The National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution in the USA owns both TTV’s – displaying the TTV-1 at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. We are fortunate that the Smithsonian allows us to display the TTV-2 here in Leicester – it is currently the only Gemini vehicle of any type on display outside of America and it has a fascinating story. Getting the TTV-2 into the building and on display is one of the biggest challenges we’ve had … but that is a story for another day!

On 25 May 1961, President John F Kennedy made an historic speech in which he set out America’s space ambitions:

“I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth”.

Bearing in mind that America had only just sent their first astronaut into space less than three weeks earlier, Kennedy was issuing NASA with a bold challenge.

Alan Shepard had kicked off America’s manned space programme in his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule on 5 May 1961. More Mercury missions followed, but these single-seat astronaut flights were a long way from being able to get to the Moon and back. With less than ten years to achieve their goal, and in the face of stiff competition from the Soviet Union, NASA had much to learn. Cue Project Gemini, designed to bridge the knowledge gap between the first steps taken during Project Mercury and the final goal of reaching the Moon on Project Apollo. Unlike Mercury, the Gemini spacecraft could fly two astronauts and had four main objectives:

• Long duration spaceflight – to prove humans could survive for long enough to reach the Moon and back
• Rendezvous and docking procedures – travelling to the Moon required multiple docking procedures and NASA needed to prefect moving and connecting vehicles in space
• Demonstrate and develop Extra-Vehicular Activity skills – little was known about spacewalking and whether humans could carry out tasks outside of the spacecraft
• Develop a method of landing spacecraft on land – a controlled runway style land-landing would be a first in spaceflight history offering many benefits

All four aims were complex and difficult to get right. The first three were all achieved – enabling NASA to press on confidently with Apollo towards the Moon – but the land-landing system proved too difficult within the time frame. However, the story of how NASA tried to achieve this goal speaks volumes about the spirit of adventure running through the early American space programme.

For Project Mercury, NASA had been happy to rely on parachutes and splashdown landings. However, most NASA astronauts came from an aviation background, and, for the test-pilots-turned-astronauts, splashdown felt too much like failure and crash landing. They wanted to control their return to Earth like true pilots. John Young, who flew two Gemini missions, said:

“I think the country can’t afford to keep sending out the U.S. Navy every time just to bring a couple of astronauts home … land-landings are indeed feasible and … must be vigorously pursued”.

Recovery of astronauts from the open ocean was expensive and dangerous – the US Department of Defense would have to supply 19 ships, 114 aircraft and 10,265 personnel to support the recovery of Gemini 5 alone. NASA turned to pre-existing technology to find a solution.

Husband and wife team, Francis and Gertrude Rogallo, had been working on an inflatable rigid wing – a cross between a kite and a parachute, which went on to inspire the sport of hang gliding. With Francis Rogallo’s help, engineers at the Langley Aeronautics Research Laboratory, Virginia, continued his work – developing the Rogallo wing concept and rebranding it the Parawing. As plans for Gemini took shape, NASA attached the Parawing concept to the project and the Gemini Paraglider was born. Contractors North American Aviation were given the task of developing the invention into a workable solution for returning Gemini capsules to Earth.

North American hit problems from the start. They planned to build various test vehicles to work on how the inflatable wing design deployed and how easily it could be controlled in flight, but problems with the backup parachutes raised safety concerns. Wind-tunnel testing had demonstrated the Parawing’s capability, but with test pilots unable to show the real thing in action, NASA chiefs began to worry about the project.

Slated for use on the first manned flights in 1965, the slow rate of progress and rising costs led to the Paraglider being removed from the early Gemini mission’s flight plans – splashdown was deemed an acceptable alternative. And it was this that really drove the nail into the coffin of the Gemini Paraglider programme.

Once Gemini 3 had successfully splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean, many at NASA questioned why any other method of landing was needed. Behind the scenes, perceived problems throughout the Gemini programme led to a management restructuring that saw Charles Mathews replace James Chamberlin as acting manager in March 1963.

Unlike Chamberlin Mathews did not favour the Paraglider, falling instead into the camp that felt land-landing was not essential for either Gemini or Apollo. By the time North American finally proved the Paraglider system successful in 1965, Mathews had already decided not to use it.

Things were made more difficult for the Paraglider programme by the fact that in 1961 North American had been awarded the prime-contract to produce the Apollo Command Module. With finances and staff being moved onto the new project, Paraglider development undoubtedly suffered. Nonetheless testing continued, with North American ironing out the problems from scale-model testing and moving on to manned test-flights. Full Scale Test Vehicles (FSTV’s) were built to test the deployment of the wing, which was designed to inflate after the Gemini capsule had re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and been slowed by drogue parachutes.

FSTV’s were dropped from the back of a Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, so the deployment mechanism of the wing could be tested before it returned to Earth under parachute. Meanwhile the TTV-1 and TTV-2 entered service as test vehicles that had the Paraglider wing already deployed – allowing three brave pilots to demonstrate the wing’s capability. The TTV’s were designed to be towed by a Sikorsky S-61L helicopter to a height of around 3,000 metres, before being released and flown down to the dry lake beds at the Edwards Air Force Base by test pilots Charles Hetzel, Don McCusker and Jack Swigert.

Jack Swigert was undergoing the astronaut selection process whilst test-flying the Gemini Paraglider TTV-2. His successful application was no doubt helped by his TTV flying, and Swigert went on to become Command Module Pilot aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission as a result. In 2015 I was lucky enough to meet Apollo 7 astronaut, Walt Cunningham. Standing underneath Gemini TTV-2, he told me how he had considered Swigert both brave and a little crazy for being willing to fly it – Cunningham, who had already been selected as an astronaut in 1963, was grateful he had never had to fly one himself. Considering the bravery of Apollo astronauts, any vehicle that Cunningham was dubious about flying must be an incredibly dangerous machine indeed! In recognition of their bravery and skill, Swigert and McCusker were awarded the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Octave Chanute Flight Test Award in 1966, after finally proving that the Gemini Paraglider concept worked.

By the time manned Gemini flights became an international news story, the Paraglider had already been dropped by Mathews from the project. Now a little-known footnote in the history of American spaceflight, Rogallo’s inflatable rigid wing design never returned spacecraft to Earth – land-landing would have to wait until the Space Shuttle finally managed it in 1981. Fittingly, almost fifteen years since he splashed down in Gemini 10, John Young, the great advocate of landing on land, was at the controls.

The Paraglider programme is testament to the level of innovation being undertaken by NASA in the 1960s. America’s desperate rush to reach the Moon before the Soviets meant that many innovations fell by the wayside in the face of tight scheduling. An inflatable Paraglider wing proved too difficult to develop in such a short space of time, but was part of a period in the history of spaceflight where pioneers were doing things that had never been done before.

The Paraglider programme forms part of an era of ambitious development in human spaceflight that has not been matched since. As NASA looks towards the future with its Orion spacecraft, it is interesting to note that its manned missions to the Moon and beyond will still return to a splashdown landing – over 50 years since an alternative was first sought.

Gemini Paraglider TTV-2 Capsule on loan from the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.