Originally scheduled to be the second manned Apollo flight, Apollo 9's mission was switched with the Lunar Orbital mission of Apollo 8 when it became apparent that, due to technical delays, Grumman would not have Lunar Module-3, Spider, ready for its maiden manned flight in December of 1968. Thus it became the third manned Apollo mission, and by the time the Spider flew man had already orbited the moon. NASA knew they could get there, now they needed to know if the ship built to land really could perform. On Apollo 9 it was time to find out.

Gumdrop is Go

Hoax Claims: The LM was untested technology but worked perfectly first time. It had never been tested with a crew before landing.

History Claims: The LM was tested several times both unmanned and manned. Both the Descent and Ascent Stages were tested prior to the landing of Apollo 11.

The primary mission goals of Apollo 9 sound rather simple, to demonstrate the operation of the Saturn V, CSM (named 'Gumdrop') and LM (named "Spider') as a unit, to test the CM and LM consumables, to demonstrate that the LM could indeed be flown by a crew, and finally to show that the CM and LM could rendezvous in space and redock with each other. In practice these goals were vitally important to the ongoing Apollo Program. The ships had to be able to fly well, and remain stable, both as a whole and individually. The LM itself had to be able to fly under the control of its crew, responding quickly and correctly to their inputs or it could not be used in any landing attempt. Finally, the onboard systems and training that the crew had gone through needed to prove that it was indeed possible to rendezvous and dock the craft, because if they couldn't the entire basis of getting the crew returned home safely was in trouble.

The crew for this mission was to include two seasoned pilots from the Gemini program. Mission Commander James McDivitt had flown on Gemini IV while Command Module Pilot David Scott flew with Neil Armstrong on Gemini VIII. For the third member of the crew this was to be his first time in space. The Lunar Module pilot, Russell "Rusty" Schweickart, was the first civilian to fly in the Apollo Program, but with a B.S. in aeronautical engineering and an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics he was more than qualified for this LM shakedown run.

Apollo 9 was the only Apollo launch to suffer from a major delay. This was caused when the crew contracted a minor respiratory viral infection and resulted in a 42-hour delay in the launch to allow them time to recover. Otherwise, all preparations for the launch went smoothly and exactly at 11:00am EST on the 3rd of March, 1969, Apollo 9 lifted off from Pad A of NASA's launch complex 39 in Florida. All of the systems onboard the Saturn V worked as planned and, 14 minutes 40 seconds later, the crew were in orbit 100 nautical miles above the Earth.

After spending nearly two and a half hours checking through the systems on their craft, and making sure that everything was working as planned, the CSM was detached from the Saturn IVB booster, and then turning on its apex, carefully started in towards where the LM was housed inside the front of the booster. Just as in their training, the craft came together and the clamps locked them into place. Just 3 hours into the third Apollo mission, the first CM/LM docking had taken place. Schweickart and McDivitt then started to prepare the LM for entry, pressurizing the docking tunnel, removing the hatches, checking the locking clamps and setting up the power umbilical that was to power the LM while it remained attached to the CSM. With the LM checked and setup, the hatches were closed, and the CSM-LM stack was separated from the Booster using an ejection mechanism that had been designed to push them apart. The first part of the mission had been achieved, it had been shown that the CSM could successfully dock with and extract the LM from its position inside the booster.

Over the rest of the day and during the next, the crew conducted a series of manoeuvres to determine how the spacecraft handled and reacted to them. They increased the orbital height over the course of four SPS burns, and performed numerous yaws, pitches and rolls to get an idea of the craft's responses, information that would be used to improve future versions of the autopilot and control systems.

The LMP is Sick

On day three were to come the first tests of the LM and so Rusty Schweickart and James McDivitt entered the LM, starting to set it up, extending the landing gear and checking through the craft's systems. Things started to fall behind though, and a little under an hour after he had entered the LM, James radioed Houston telling them that Rusty has been sick on two occasions and that they were no longer on schedule. Even feeling nauseous and unwell from being in a weightless environment, Rusty still managed to perform a few tasks, both ships communications, including their TV camera, being tested and the LM's descent engine being fired for a little over six minutes while it still attached to the CSM. Though it was unknown at the time, this test would prove to be extremely critical on a later mission when Apollo 13's SPS was damaged by the explosion of one of their oxygen tanks and was inoperable.

With the communications check and LM descent engine burn complete, Schweickart and McDivitt transferred back into the CM and after shutting down the LM, the crew performed a fifth SPS burn to place the craft into an appropriate rendezvous orbit for later in the mission. They then got some much-needed rest, though with Rusty still sick and the prospect of an early mission end looming, the mood both onboard and at mission control was low.

Seven Minutes of Freedom

Hoax Claims: The LM crew could not have made their way through the tunnel between the CM and the LM because their space suits and backpacks were too bulky and would not have fitted.

History Claims: While the crew donned their space suits inside the CM, the PLSS backpacks were stowed in the LM. Helmets, gloves and PLSS were all put on inside the LM rather than the CM, the PLSS only after landing.

As day four started, good news was to come from the crew high overhead. Rusty was looking and feeling much better. He was no longer nauseous or pale, and so it was decided that the next stage of the mission could be done without further delays. With that the spirits both onboard the craft and on the ground were lightened greatly and Rusty and James both headed back into the LM to prepare for the EVA. The original plan had been for Rusty to have left the LM, walked over to the open hatch of the CSM and then returned to the LM, but since he had been feeling unwell, and with the time lost from that meaning there were still many things to complete for the final stages of the mission, the EVA was cut to just having him step out onto the porch while Dave Scott stood in the open CSM hatch and instead of wearing the usual PLSS they would be connected to their craft's systems.

The Apollo space suits all have a series of values on the front of them for their life support. On suiting up for the missions before they are given a portable life support that looked like a large silver briefcase. The tubes from this were connected to the valves in the front of the suit. Once onboard the craft, this support was removed and the astronauts were connected directly to the CSM's systems allowing them to breath independently from the CSM atmosphere during the launch period, until orbit. Once in Orbit, the suits pressure would be lowered to just below that of the CM and then opened (this would prevent exhaust gases from the suit mixing with the cabin air, rather it would be forced by the higher pressure cabin air out to the CSM systems.) During the flight the crew would work in "shirt sleeves" only donning their suits when they were about to enter the LM for undocking. The goldfish bubble helmets and gloves were carried through to the LM while the bulky items such as the over helmets and PLSS backpacks were stored in the LM itself. Once in the LM and ready to undock, the crew would connect their suits to the LM life support systems and then don their helmets and gloves. The PLSS would not be put on and connected before they were about to depressurise the craft to exit it.

Hoax Claims: In the documentary 'Paper Moon' The host measures a replica of the LEM at The Space Centre in Houston, what he finds is that the LM hatch was too small to have allowed the crews to get out of the LM while wearing their PLSS.

History Claims: The hatch was indeed large enough, 32" square and the crews practiced in the very LM mock up that was used for the measurements. The trouble with the measurements taken was that they measured the space from elbow to elbow.

Seventy-two hours and forty-five minutes after launch, the LM was decompressed, and the hatch opened to allow Rusty to make his way out onto the Porch. Fourteen minutes later he slid his boots into special grips called the golden slippers, which had been attached to the porch, and started to set up cameras while he waited for Dave to emerge from the CSM hatch. Literally becoming his own Spacecraft, Rusty adopted the name "Red Rover" during his EVA, the time outside spent testing communications and performance of the PLSS Backpack which would be used by the moonwalkers. He also retrieved the thermal test samples from the side of the LM while Dave retrieved the samples from the SM; the CM thermal samples were missing though. They took photos and video footage of the spacewalk, the only non-lunar surface EVA that was filmed by any Apollo crew. With the permission of the Commander and Mission Control, Rusty then was allowed to complete a partial crossing from one craft to the other using the transfer handles on the outside of the LM and CM. During the three quarters of an hour that Rusty had outside he managed something that no one person has ever had. One of Dave Scott's cameras broke and he had to return inside the CM to fix it. That left Rusty alone and with nothing to do. For those few precious minutes he had free time on an EVA, able to just enjoy it. It was all over far too quickly though, and both pilots had to return inside the craft and prepare for the next stage of the mission.

Just as the later Astronauts would, Rusty had to emerge from the LM's front hatch equipped in a full Lunar spacesuit, including the bulky PLSS backpack. He achieved this without difficulty even in a weightless state. Several of the Astronauts would later comment that it was harder to exit in low gravity than on Earth in practice as the suit wasn't being pulled down as much. Rusty's job of getting out of the LM would have been more difficult still, but was achieved without trouble.

It is also interesting to note that the LM used by the "Paper Moon" documentary was not a real LM, but rather it was a test vehicle, LTA-8A. This one in particular was in fact used for training the crews on egress and ingress while wearing a suit. To achieve this, the test vehicle was placed in a vacuum chamber and the fully suited astronauts would have to climb up and into it, and then exit again. The author of this page has to note the irony of using this particular vehicle to make a claim that such a feat was impossible when in reality it was not only used for training in exactly this purpose, but such training was done in front of many observers. It should also be noted that no Hoax Proponent has ever been an attempt to actually have a space-suited individual enter and exit a LM hatch to show it is not possible; they have merely measured the hatch and declared it is impossible. History, both with the astronaut training, and Apollo 9 proves them wrong.

A Note About Spacesuits

Hoax Claims: The fabric space suits had a crotch to shoulder zipper. There should have been fast leakage of air since even a pinhole deflates a tyre in short order.

History Claims: Inside the zipper were two rubber seals. The internal pressure of the suit pressed these seals together making the zipper almost airtight.

All of the Apollo crews had a customised spacesuit (actually three, a mission suit, a practice suit and a backup,) though the ones for the Mission Commanders and the Lunar Pilots had a number of subtle differences that would be required on the Lunar surface when compared to the Command Module Pilots' ones. They all had the same basic structure however, one of which was that the white suit we see in most of the images wasn't the real pressure suit. This was merely an outer garment that was designed to help keep the space suit cooler and also to protect it from harm by adding a resistant layer over the top of it. This means that it's really rather irrelevant that it had a zipper since it wasn't part of the system to keep air in anyway. Now having said that, to be fair, the pressure suit underneath had a zipper as well, but it didn't leak a great deal. This was achieved by having two overlapping rubber seals behind the zipper. When the suit was at pressure that pressure would push them together creating a seal and preventing air from escaping while the zipper help them in place. The suits were not entirely leak proof however, and air did escape through the seals including around the gloves and helmet. This was very slow however, and the PLSS air supply was easily able to replace the lost amount. The suits used by the CM Pilots during the later missions and the Gemini Pilots who did their own Space walks all used the same techniques to seal the suits, it wasn't something just developed for the Apollo moonwalker suits.

Hoax Claims: The astronauts in these "pressurized" suits were easily able to bend their fingers, wrists, elbows, and knees at 5.2 psi and yet a boxer's 4 psi speed bag is virtually unbendable. The guys would have looked like balloon men if the suits had actually been pressurized.

History Claims: The spacesuit had a built-in restraining layer, like those found in garden hoses. This prevented ballooning. The elbows and knees were designed to have accordion style joints to assist movement. The knuckles in the gloves were what are termed as "constant volume joints" and so won't expand, but remain flexible.

As can be seen in the image above, the suit we see in the images and film are of the outer non-pressurised layer. However this still does require answering. The suits that all the Gemini crews and that Rusty Schweickart and Dave Scott performed their EVA's in were the same in design as the ones that Neil Armstrong and the other eleven moonwalkers would use and since they didn't Balloon either there must be a reason. While the Apollo era spacesuits were not pressurised at 5.2 psi, but rather 3.7 psi, Even the higher pressure modern Space Shuttle suits and the Soviet suits didn't balloon. The answer is actually quite simple and is even found in basic gardening tools like your everyday hose. The space suits were not just one layer, but were several. One of these layers was a flexible mesh that was resistant to stretching and as such it held the suit in place just like placing a net over a balloon would. The same is done in a garden hose to prevent it from bulging out and forming a weak spot that could burst. The elbows and knees of pressure suit were flexible accordion style joints that allowed as much freedom of movement as possible, even under pressure, as did the swivel shoulder joints. The knuckles in the gloves used a further technique called constant volume joints. In the image provided, these look like strange knobs of rubber on the knuckles, but they are designed to remain the same volume under motion so that such movements aren't as stressful on the hands and as tiring as allowing the suit to change volume. Getting this right makes the gloves one of the most highly engineered parts of the space suit.

Hoax Claims: NASA claims that the suits were water-cooled and air-conditioned. The water sourced air conditioner backpacks should have produced frequent explosive vapour discharges. They never did. How exactly can an air conditioner work in space? When you compare it to an air conditioning unit on Earth, how could it possible be powered?

The Primary Life Support System (PLSS) contains a battery to run it, oxygen tanks, communications gear, a LiOH and charcoal air filter and scrubber cartridge, a sublimator, and water for running the cooling system and sublimator. The sublimator is a simple heat exchanger that works by transferring the heat from a cooling garment worn by the astronaut and from the suit's air supply to ice that is formed on it. This slowly sublimates and is leaked out of the pack via an exhaust rather than discharging explosively.

Though Dave Scott was not wearing a PLSS during this EVA, since he was connected to the CM's supplies, Rusty Schweickart was wearing one. This backpack, also called an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU,) contains the astronaut's communications gear, two high pressure (1020 PSIA, upgraded to 1430 PSIA for later missions) oxygen tanks for replenishing the astronaut's suit pressure as he uses it up, two Oxygen Purge System tanks with about 30 minutes of oxygen in case the main supply failed, a Lithium Hydroxide and Charcoal canister that acted as a filter for the air as well as a scrubber to remove carbon dioxide, a battery to run it all and two water tanks, one to collect wastewater from the recycled air and a 3.9 litre bladder (later increased to 5.2 litres) for feedwater to be used with the cooling system.

The cooling system in the PLSS worked by use of a Liquid Cooled Garment (LCG,) worn by the astronauts under their spacesuit, a heat exchanger, and what was called a sublimator. The LCG was essentially a pair of long johns with tubing through it. Water was circulated around the tubing and would warm up as the Astronaut exerted himself. This circulation was called the Cooling Loop and once it was charged with water, there was very little loss from it, though if needed it could be topped up from the PLSS supply. By using a diverter valve, which was located on the bottom left of the PLSS, the astronaut could divert water from the cooling loop and into the PLSS's heat exchanger where chilled water from the cooling feeder tank would remove the excess heat from the Cooling Loop water before being feed into the sublimator. The more water that the Astronaut diverted out of the Cooling Loop and through the heat exchanger, the colder the water in the loop would be. The diverter valve had three distinct settings, Minimum (24-27°C), Intermediate (15-18°C), and Maximum (4-8°C). The feedwater, now hot from the heat exchanger, was then slowly feed through the porous nickel plates of the sublimator and out into the vacuum of space. This drop in pressure would also lead to a drop in temperature, resulting in the water freezing into ice on the outside of the sublimator before subliming into a gas and leaking from the backpack through an exhaust.

Oxygen was also recycled through this system to cool it. Removed from the suit through vents near the feet and elbows, it was first cooled by the sublimator, exchanging its heat to the ice formed on the outside, before being passed through the LiOH scrubbers. It was then mixed with new oxygen from the oxygen tank to keep the suit pressure up (the suits were kept at a constant 3.7 psi,) and passed back into the suit through vents in the helmet to keep the Astronaut's head cool, help stop the helmet fogging and to prevent any carbon dioxide build up in the helmet. These two methods of cooling were so effective that even on the Intermediate setting, several of the Astronauts commented that it made them too cold. Due to the very high vaporisation energy of water, this constant sublimation of ice could remove a large amount of heat even though the amount of water being sublimated at any time was quite small, meaning that the larger 5.2 litre tanks would hold enough water to run for around nine hours of moderate exertion. Since there is only ever a small amount of gaseous water and as the backpack is not closed, but rather open to the environment, there could never be a large enough build up of water vapour inside of it to discharge explosively.

This system was also used in larger units on various parts of the Apollo spacecraft as cooling systems and lead to the modern day EMU that the space shuttle and ISS crews use on all of their spacewalks, none of which display an explosive discharge either. Other than the communications gear, the 279 watt-hours PLSS batteries (this was upgraded to 390 watt-hours for the later J-Missions) were only required to keep two small electronic motors running, one for a pump to circulate the water, the other for a fan to do the same with the air supply. The pump and fan could be individually turned on or off by the astronaut via the PLSS remote control unit on the front of his chest. While some of the consumables in the PLSS (Oxygen and Feedwater) would be restored from the LM supplies, the Battery and LiOH cartridges were simply swapped out for new ones. This whole procedure of recharging the PLSS would take about 30 minutes and was done prior to exiting for an EVA.

Trial of the Spider

Day five was to be one of the longest for the crew of Apollo 9's Gumdrop and Spider. The LMP entered the LM about an hour before the Commander and started preparing the craft for the historic events of the day. This was to be the first time in history that a crew would step from one craft into another, undock and fly that separate craft on its own, and then return and re-dock with the first. Four months earlier the Soviets had rendezvoused and docked Soyuz 4 and 5, transferring two members of the crew via a space walk from five to four and then undocked and landed the craft separately, but to undock and then meet up again was something that had not been tried. Even the Gemini craft that had done separate rendezvous had done so with different targets.

After some initial trouble getting the docking latches to release the LM, the two ships detached and the LM made a slow roll so the Command Module Pilot could check it for any sign of damage. Once it was confirmed that the LM was ready to go, the CSM conducted a short reaction system thrust to increase the distance between itself and the LM. The LM was then put through its paces. During one of the first burns the LM main engine started to chug as it was throttled up towards 20% power. Commander James McDivitt immediately stopped throttling the engine, and after a few seconds it settled down. He then accelerated up to 40% without a problem before shutting down. Once the crew had checked their systems, they reignited the engine and throttled it up to 10% making sure that it would run evenly.

In preparation for the lunar recovery phase of the program, the LM was placed in a series of orbits so that it would twice rendezvous within a number of nautical miles of the CSM, once at the apogee and once at the perigee of the orbit. With these goals achieved and a more than satisfactory performance by both the LM's descent stage engine and reaction system allowing the crew to manoeuvre the craft into the rendezvous orbits with apparent ease, the descent stage was jettisoned and the ascent stage moved away from it under thrust from the reaction system. This was done so that the descent stage would remain intact rather than being shattered into many bits of debris by the ascent engine's blast. Even so, there was a cloud of small debris that hit the ascent module and damaged their tracking strobe light.

The CSM was then manoeuvred into a co-elliptical orbit with the LM and the rendezvous tracking radar switching on, locking onto the LM even though he could not see it due to the broken tracking light. The LM was then required to carry out a number of orbital manoeuvres with the ascent engine so that it could catch up and move into a station keeping position just off of the CSM. They stayed in this position for around half an hour, conducting formation flying while taking photos and preparing the craft for re-docking.

Finally, after nearly six hours and twenty-three minutes of flying alone, the LM re-docked with the CSM and the crew began to switch it over to allow for the automatic firing of the ascent engine in what would be its last flight. With the crew safely back in the CSM, the ascent module was undocked for the last time, the ascent engine being fired remotely to use up the last of its fuel. The Spider entered an elliptical orbit 3,760.9 by 126.6 nautical miles and would remain in space until the 23rd of October 1981, a full seven months after the first flight of Apollo's replacement, the Space Shuttle Columbia.

The Final Days

Even without the LM attached anymore, the final four days of the mission were not to be boring. The crew was kept busy with a host of photography including a number of never before attempted orbital inclinations allowing them to pass over terrain that had not been able to be photographed from space before. Among the photos they took where several where they took simultaneous photographs with four different film/filter combinations. They also used Jupiter to make the first ever inertial measurement unit alignment with a sighting of a planet and performed a number of daylight star sightings, landmark sightings, and star sextant sightings. During two successive revolutions the crew successfully tracked, at a range of 1,000 nautical miles, the Pegasus III satellite, which had been launched on 30 July 1965. They even sighted Spider one more time as they both passed over Hawaii on one orbit.

With a seventh SPS burn to establish the desired conditions for the nominal deorbit point, after 10 days and 151 orbits, the eight and final SPS burn was completed to deorbit the craft. Five minutes later the Service Module was jettisoned and Gumdrop was on its way home. Less than half an hour later, 10 days, 1 hour and 54 seconds after launch, Apollo 9's mission was over, the CM making an almost perfect splashdown into the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The crew were picked up by the recovery ship U.S.S. Guadalcanal and from there flew first to Eleuthera in the Bahamas, and then on to Houston.

The first flight of the Lunar Module had been an overwhelming success. Though a little late, the engineers at Grumman had delivered what they promised. With the LM now having been tested in Earth orbit and working well within it specifications, all that was left to do was to test it in the lunar environment and even as the crew of Apollo 9 were flying their way home to Houston, the crews that would take LM-4 and LM-5 through their final testing phases at the moon were already training to do just that.