\n<\/p>\n
Apollo 8 offered a hopeful end to 1968, a year marked by assassinations, riots and the Vietnam War. On Christmas Eve its astronauts circled the moon while reading from Genesis. In May 1969, Apollo 10\u2019s playfully named lunar lander, Snoopy, came within nine miles of the moon\u2019s surface in a dress rehearsal for Neil Armstrong\u2019s first steps on the moon two months later.<\/p>\n
In between was Apollo 9, almost forgotten now.<\/p>\n
That mission did not go to the moon. Instead, it went around and around the Earth for 10 days, performing a series of tests with the lunar lander, making its space debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cApollo 9, from the technology point of view, was very important,\u201d said Rusty Schweickart, one of the three astronauts on the mission. \u201cFrom the glory point of view, it had the minimum,\u201d he added, with a laugh. \u201cHey, we all contribute in our way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artemis III is now the 21st-century equivalent of Apollo 9.<\/p>\n
That is a complete change from what NASA had been planning. Until a few months ago, the plan for Artemis III was to go all the way to the surface of the moon.<\/p>\n
But that would have required a giant leap in technological capability over what had been demonstrated during Artemis II, when four astronauts swung around the moon, relying on systems like Starship\u2019s life support setup working properly in space on the first try.<\/p>\n
In February, Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, announced that Artemis III would now just go into Earth orbit, like Apollo 9, and that one or both of the lunar landers would launch separately. Then the astronauts would practice docking with the landers. That step-by-step approach, following the playbook of Apollo, would allow NASA to gain knowledge and experience that would increase the chances of success for the moon landing, now scheduled for Artemis IV, sometime in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one here at NASA forgot their history books,\u201d Mr. Isaacman said in February.<\/p>\n
Mr. Schweickart agreed, \u201cI think it makes a lot more sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Apollo 9, the astronauts showed that they could dock the command module with the lunar lander. While the two spacecraft were connected, Mr. Schweickart and James McDivitt entered the lunar lander, activated it and tested its main engine and controls. On the fourth day, Mr. Schweikert performed a spacewalk, a first test of a spacesuit designed for walking on the moon.<\/p>\n
On the fifth day, Mr. Schweickart and Mr. McDivitt undocked the lunar lander from the command module and flew the lander independently for more than six hours, moving more than 100 miles from the command module, where the third astronaut, David Scott, remained.<\/p>\n
The two spacecraft then approached each other in preparation for docking again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can remember Jim and I looking at each other during the rendezvous,\u201d Mr. Schweickart said. \u201cIt was the first time that anybody had been in spaceflight in a vehicle that couldn\u2019t get them back home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two astronauts in the lunar lander had practiced what to do if the redocking failed. \u201cYou train 10 percent on everything going right and 90 percent on things going wrong,\u201d Mr. Schweickart said.<\/p>\n
That included the possibility of putting on spacesuits to jump from the lander back into the command module, but the training for that emergency proved unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything worked very well,\u201d Mr. Schweickart said, which gave NASA confidence that it would work well for a landing on the moon as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cApollo 9 was really a damn good idea,\u201d Mr. Schweickart said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s a very good idea on Artemis III being a similar type of mission.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n