Paving the Way

Standing on the shoulders of giants.

As the Artemis II crew prepares for launch no earlier than April 1, they recently took a moment to pay homage to the Apollo 10 crew and the groundwork they laid for the Artemis II Moon mission. pic.twitter.com/uP8LpIDkcp

— NASA Artemis (@NASAArtemis) March 31, 2026

No whirlygigs on this mission, okay?  My old ticker probably will not take kindly to a repeat of this scene from Apollo 10:

We thought we were ready to stage, so we prepared to fire the ascent engine and blew the bolts. When we did, all hell broke loose. Snoopy went nuts.

“GIMBAL LOCK!” Tom screamed.

“SON-OF-A-BITCH!” I yelled over the open microphone. “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?” We were suddenly bouncing, diving and spinning all over the place as we blazed along at 3,000 miles per hour, less than 47,000 feet above the rocks and craters—much closer if you consider those damned mountains that seemed to be grinning around us like gigantic decayed teeth.

Thinking we were in Ags, Tom shouted, “Let’s go to Pings,” and again flipped the switch, which put us back into Ags. “Goddamn!” The computers were by now totally confused and useless. The spacecraft radar that was supposed to be locking onto Charlie Brown had found a much larger target, the Moon, and was trying to fly in that direction instead of toward the orbiting command module.

Things went topsy-turvy and I saw the surface corkscrew through my window, then the knife edge of a horizon, then blackness, then the Moon again, only this time coming from a different direction. We were totally out of control. “Okay,” I gasped. “Let’s … let’s make this burn on the Ags, babe.” We scrambled to stop the gyrations.

Five seconds later. Tom sent a fresh set of heart attacks to Mission Control, where people wearing headsets had jumped to their feet, not believing the onslaught of warnings that were flashing on their computer terminals. “We’re in trouble!” he called. Houston didn’t know what the hell was happening and things were moving much too fast for them to help.

That old devil Moon whipped past my window again, this time from left to right, and looked awfully close. I stole a glance at the eight ball, which spun crazily as it hunted a nonexistent horizon. Again the lunar surface dodged by, now bottom to top. “What the hell,” I called. “Let’s get on the Ags. I’ve got to get this damn thing.”

“Snoop, Houston,” called an alarmed Charlie Duke. “We show you close to gimbal lock!”

Thinking we might have an open thruster, similar to what had happened to Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott on Gemini 8, Tom overrode the computers and grabbed manual control of the spacecraft. Then, as swiftly as it had started, the horrifying little episode ended, a fifteen-second lifetime during which we made about eight cartwheels above the Moon, and Tom jerked Snoopy back onto a tight leash. Ole Mumbles do know how to fly. After analyzing the data, experts later surmised that had we continued spinning for only two more seconds, Tom and I would have crashed.

Space is hard, and terrifying at times.  At least Artemis II won't have to contend with rendezvous in lunar orbit.  Godspeed.