Gemini 8 flight from episode 1 of "From The Earth To The Moon"

[RayLRiv]

I named my son Scotty after CDR Dave Scott...

[olentangy74]

I will never understand why Brett Mccullen was chosen to play

Why Brett Mcullen as chosen to portray David Scott i do not get. Mcullen is a good actor, but looks nothing like Scott. Scott had brown eyes and dark brown hair while Mcullen is sandy blonde and light eyes. Other than that a pretty good job of casting

[Jiraiya1969]

I has no clue thtat Armstrong a) had flown on an earlier flight and b) that he was faced with an earlier life and death situation besides the manual moon landing in '69

[Nautilus1972]

@Jiraiya1969 Oh wow, check out 'In the shadow of the moon' - he ejected from the LM simulator on earth before it crashed and exploded. Alan Bean I think it was heard about it and didn't believe it because he'd already seen Armstrong that day, and Armstrong hadn't mentioned it. He went over to Armstron's office and said "Neil, did you eject from the LM today?!" .. .Armstrong just replied "Yep."

[SepradistPhantom]

How come the altitude indicator works in space and in zero g? I would have thought it would just start spinning wildly?

[mrcheeseface2]

" let's just float to china.." wow

[hughbreidenbach]

I had showed this clip to my wife on DVD, to give her an insight into why I'm a space freak. The tensest, most remarkable event that an astronaut actually survived. She said "The flight surgeon looks like Harry Hill".

[Nautilus1972]

@hughbreidenbach Eh, I'll go with Apollo 1 on that score. Plus any of the many Soviet foul-ups that we'll never hear about.

[Nautilus1972]

@hughbreidenbach Eh, I'll go with Apollo 13 on that score. Plus any of the many Soviet missions that we'll never hear about.

[hughbreidenbach]

@Nautilus1972 Dare'nt show her that. She fancies Tom Hanks.

[MrBennetzen]

The Recovery Ship in the Western Pacific on this flight was the USS Lenoard F. Mason.

[Nighthawke70]

Neil's dug himself some holes before. He was flying a twin Beech with Chuck Yeager and hey were checking some lake beds for landing suitability and wound up getting the aircraft mired in some gelato grade mud. The mud was disguised by a thin glaze of soil. Neil said it looked good, but the dry lake veteran Yeager knew otherwise. Neil set the Beech down on the lake bed and buried it nice as you can please.

[hughbreidenbach]

@Nighthawke70

True. However, before the flight, Armstrong was assured that the lake beds would have dried out sufficiently. The advice he was given... was crap.

IN SUMMARY

$55,000 Twin Beech- TRASHED

$2,500,000 Flying Bedstead- DESTROYED

Guzzillion Megabuck LEM- PERFECT LANDING

So you're right, he aint so hot on lakebeds. But he got it right when it counted! :)

[TheBetito123]

im a kid and i have 11 year old and why that happeed, i want to be an astronaut

[pierce12lax]

hahahahaha docking

[Tubewings]

They actually landed around the Philippine Sea, so they'd most likely reach Okinawa before they reached China.

[toddsmitts]

You cut off the fun last line:

Armstong: Oh, God, give me that bag.

[BobbyB654321]

Um, wasn't the Gemini cabin not pressurized...

[TheJomogogo]

@BobbyB654321

It was pressurized. What, did you think they operated in a vacuum?

[BobbyB654321]

@TheJomogogo I know it was pressurized, but I seem to recall that it wasn't pressured enough to take off your suit. Very rarely did the astronauts take off their helmets.

What about Mercury?

[UdallIn72]

@BobbyB654321

I'm not sure that's right.

During Gemini 7 (the 14-day marathon mission), Jim Lovell and Frank Borman were helmetless for almost the entire mission--and they were unsuited for a large portion of it, too.

[RTSiciliano]

@BobbyB654321 Sure it was, Bobby, but once they splashed down the vents were opened allowing air to enter.

[bobbya16]

There will never be another Neil Armstrong.....He is one of a kind....

[RTSiciliano]

The primary reason Armstrong was made Commander of the first moon landing was the cool under pressure he displayed here.

[youvebeenthunderstru]

Not necessarily; there was a flight rotation system. Armstrong was backup on Apollo 8 and it was not guaranteed that 11 would make the landing on the first try. It could have been Conrad, or whatever.

[UdallIn72]

@RTSiciliano

Naw, I think it was mainly for more ordinary scheduling-type reasons. Any member of the astronaut corps could have commanded Apollo 11--those guys were the best of the best, remember.

Had Gus Grissom lived (he wasn't dead yet at the time of Gemini 8), Deke Slayton has said tha the would have commanded the first lunar landing mission.

Also, I think Pete Conrad's crew was originally booked for Apollo 11. I think they got flipped because of Michael Collins' back problem.

[solesman91]

@UdallIn72 Conrad and Armstrong's missions ended up switching because their previous backup missions switched, Apollo 8 & 9. The LEM wasn't ready yet.

[101southsideboy]

@RTSiciliano no the main reason was

1. was he a civilian and NASA did not want a military pilot to be the first man on the moon. IT was A PR thing NASA had at the time they thought it would be better of a non military pilot was first the first one.

2, Had either Apollo 9 or 10 not been successful those missions would have repeated until they were. NASA just lucked out that 9 and 10 were successful

[thehoaxbuster]

@RTSiciliano

It was actually going to be Gus Grissom. Armstrong was picked after Grissom died.

[jc851]

this is amazing!!

[Andybucker]

Horrible. Even for trained people it is horribly hard

[youvebeenthunderstru]

The rate of rotation at its fastest was 1 revolution per second... that's a pretty dizzy experience. They were pretty close to death.