Who were Elliot See and Charles Bassett?
In 1965, US Naval Reserve commander Elliot See and US Air Force major Charles Bassett were named the prime crew of Gemini 9, the seventh manned mission of NASA's Gemini program. Scheduled for May 1966, the mission sought to dock with a target vehicle and test a new astronaut maneuvering unit during the third American spacewalk. Tragically, neither man would see space.
Anchors Aweigh
Elliot McKay See, Jr. was born in Dallas, Texas on July 23, 1927 and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America, the highest rank attainable. He graduated high school in spring 1945, a few months before World War II ended, and enrolled at the University of Texas. Later that year, he received an appointment to the US Merchant Marine Academy and graduated with a bachelor's degree, his marine engineer's license, and a commission in the US Naval Reserve.
In late 1954, after being stationed at the Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego, California during the end of the Korean War, See shipped out for a sixteen-month tour as a naval aviator. He was first deployed to the Mediterranean on the aircraft carrier USS Randolph and flew the Grumman F9F Panther with Fighter Squadron 144 [1]. While serving with VF-144 onboard the USS Boxer, he traveled to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, and reached the rank of lieutenant commander [2]. In 1956 after his tour of duty, See rejoined General Electric in Ohio, where he was employed as a flight test engineer before called to active duty. While serving as an experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California, he flew the F-86 Sabre, F4D Skyray, F-104 Starfighter, F11F-1F Super Tiger, B-66 Destroyer, F4H Phantom II, and most significantly to his career as an astronaut, the T-38 Talon.
See was selected for NASA's second group of astronauts, the New Nine, as one of the first two civilian astronauts (Neil Armstrong as the other). At the time of his selection, he was a commander in the Naval Reserve and held a Master of Science in aeronautical engineering. He and Armstrong were announced as the backup pilot and command pilot, respectively, of Gemini 5 in February 1965, and See served as a capsule communicator during Gemini 7 and its rendezvous with Gemini 6A in December.
Wild Blue Yonder
Charles Arthur Bassett II was born in Dayton, Ohio on December 30, 1931. Like See, he was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of Life Scout, the second-highest rank attainable. He earned his private pilot license while in high school and attended Ohio State University in Columbus from 1950 to 1952 before commissioning in the Air Force in December 1953. While at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, he flew the T-6, T-28, and T-33 trainer aircraft. He flew the F-86 Sabre with the 8th Fighter Bomber Group in Korea, but did not see combat.
Afterwards, he was stationed at Suffolk County AFB in New York and flew the F-86D, the F-102 Delta Dagger, and the C-119 Flying Boxcar. After receiving his Bachelor of Science with honors in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University (at the time Texas Technical College) in 1960, he attended Squadron Officer School at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. Finally, he graduated from the Air Force Experimental Test Pilot School and the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB in California. Three other future NASA astronauts graduated ARPS with Bassett— Ed Givens, Mike Collins, and Joe Engle— as well as Manned Orbiting Laboratory astronaut Greg Neubeck [3]. Bassett was selected for NASA's third group of astronauts, the Fourteen, in October 1963. Before being assigned to a Gemini mission, he was assigned as backup command module pilot of the second manned Apollo mission, which would become Apollo 7, with Frank Borman and Bill Anders, the future commander and lunar module pilot of Apollo 8.
Castor and Pollux
In October 1965, See was replaced by Dave Scott as pilot of Gemini 8, scheduled for spring of 1966, and promoted to commend pilot of the following Gemini mission. Bassett joined him as pilot and the pair were announced as the crew of Gemini 9 on November 8. Backup command pilot was Tom Stafford, who was preparing for his upcoming Gemini 6 flight in December, while backup pilot was rookie Gene Cernan.
According to Deke Slayton, assistant director of Flight Crew Operations, See was not physically fit enough to perform an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), the responsibility of the pilot of later Gemini missions. Bassett on the other hand, was "strong enough to carry the two of them" (Slayton, 1994). One of Bassett's primary objectives was to test the Air Force's Astronaut Maneuvering Unit, a backpack used to maneuver in the space environment, and the predecessor to NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit, during a two-hour long EVA [4]. Scheduled for May 17, 1966, See and Bassett were to spend three days in orbit and rendezvous and dock with the Gemini-Agena Target Vehicle.
Neither Elliot See or Charles Bassett would see space.
GT-5 backup pilot See during water egress training | Bassett during GT-9 training (NASA)
NASA 901
On the morning of February 28, 1966, the prime and backup crews of Gemini 9 were flying from Ellington AFB in Houston, Texas to Lambert Field in St. Louis, Missouri, to spend two weeks at the McDonnell Aircraft plant, where the Gemini 9 spacecraft was being built. Since the early 1960s, NASA has maintained a fleet of Northrop T-38 Talon aircraft– two-seat, twinjet supersonic jet trainers. See and Bassett took the lead, flying in the jet tailnumbered "NASA 901", while Stafford and Cernan flew "NASA 907". Thick clouds, rain, snow flurries, and poor visibility hindered the astronauts' ability to land and both jets overshot the runway. Stafford ascended to the clouds and prepared for another approach, losing sight of NASA 901.
After circling back around, See deployed his T-38's landing gear and fully extended its flaps. However, realizing he was flying too low to the ground and too far left of the runway, as well as directly towards McDonnell Building 101, lit the afterburners to increase speed (and increase lift) and turned hard right. At 0858 CST, the jet struck the building's roof, losing its starboard (right) wing and landing gear. The fuselage cartwheeled and crashed into a nearby parking lot before exploding into flames. 17 McDonnell employees were injured by falling debris and tragically, See and Bassett were killed on impact just 500 feet (150 meters) from their Gemini 9 spacecraft.
See was found in the parking lot still strapped to his ejection seat with his parachute half-opened. Bassett was found decapitated with his head in the rafters of Building 101. Stafford and Cernan were informed of the crash once on the ground by James McDonnell himself, the founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. A seven-member investigation board headed by Chief Astronaut Alan Shepard ruled the crash as pilot error.
Elliot See was survived by his wife Marilyn and their three children, Sally, Carolyn, and David. Charles Bassett was survived by his wife Jeannie and their two children Karen and Peter. The two were interred near each other at Arlington National Cemetery on March 4. Their names are inscribed on the Fallen Astronaut memorial plaque left on the moon at Hadley Rille by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971, and on the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
The loss of Elliot See and Charles Bassett had a lasting impact on the manned space program, but not by impacting flight operations. As mentioned earlier, Bassett was slated to fly an Apollo mission with Borman and Anders. Following normal crew rotation, See would have been the backup command pilot of Gemini 12. With Stafford and Cernan now the prime crew of Gemini 9A, a new backup crew needed to be named. By mid-March, Deke Slayton had chosen Gemini 7 pilot Jim Lovell and rookie Buzz Aldrin as Stafford and Cernan's backups. The pair flew the last Gemini mission, Gemini 12, in November 1966. Had it not been for the Gemini 9 accident, Aldrin would not have had the spaceflight experience needed to fly the first manned lunar landing mission, and someone else would have been the second man to walk on the moon.
See and Bassett were the second and third American astronauts to be killed— Ted Freeman, an Air Force captain and member of NASA's third astronaut class, was killed in a T-38 crash in 1964. The jet trainer would claim the life of yet another rookie astronaut, C.C. Williams, in 1967.
The original crew of Gemini 9, as well as the crews of Apollo 1, STS-51L Challenger, STS-107 Columbia, and all others who have died in the conquest of space, will never be forgotten.
[1] The USS Randolph later served as the recovery ship for Gus Grissom's Mercury-Redstone 4 and John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 missions and was part of the naval blockade of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
[2] The USS Boxer recovered the unmanned AS-201 capsule.
[3] Michael Collins flew Gemini 10 in 1966 and Apollo 11 in 1969. Joe Engle, originally slated to walk on the moon during Apollo 17, flew the Space Shuttle Enterprise test flights and two Shuttle missions, STS-2 Columbia and STS-51-I Discovery, as well was three flights of the X-15 prior to his astronaut selection. Ed Givens was selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts but was killed in a car crash in 1967.
[4] The Astronaut Maneuvering Unit would have been used by MOL astronauts.
Bibliography
"Charles A. Bassett II." The Astronauts Memorial Foundation. https://www.amfcse.org/charles-a-bassett-ii-1
"Elliot M. See, Jr." The Astronauts Memorial Foundation. https://www.amfcse.org/elliot-m-see-jr-1
Evans, Ben. "'Like an Angry Alligator': 50 Years Since the Challenging Mission of Gemini IX (Part 1)." AmericaSpace, 2016. https://www.americaspace.com/2016/06/04/like-an-angry-alligator-50-years-since-the-challenging-mission-of-gemini-ix-part-1/ <– more info on the AMU
Evans, Ben. "'Who was in NASA 901?' Remembering the Accident that Almost Claimed Project Gemini." AmericaSpace, 2023. https://www.americaspace.com/2023/02/28/who-was-in-nasa-901-remembering-the-accident-that-almost-claimed-project-gemini/
Slayton, Donald K. "Deke!" Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 1994.
"USS Randolph CV-15, CVA-15, CVS-15." https://www.ussrandolphcv15.com/
This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL)
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