When they were talking about the number of Titan missile failures, they showed two
Titan I missiles blowing up. Gemini used
Titan IIs. Those were completely different missiles (engines, propellants, etc). The Titan I had a success rate of under 76% (17 failures out of 70 attempts). The Titan II did have several failures in 1963 but overall, the success rate was over 93% (7 failures out of 106 launches).
The video footage was very good. I would've liked to see them give more coverage to
Gordon Cooper's Mercury mission. There were
several failed systems by the time he reentered that it took some pretty good piloting on his part to come home safely.
On the nineteenth orbit, the first sign of trouble appeared when the spacecraft 0.05 g (0.5 m/sē) light came on. However, this turned out to be a faulty indicator, and the spacecraft was not reentering. On the 20th orbit, Cooper lost all attitude readings. The 21st orbit saw a short-circuit occur in the bus bar serving the 250 volt main inverter. This left the automatic stabilization and control system without electric power.
On the 21st orbit, John Glenn onboard the Coastal Sentry Quebec near Kyūshū, Japan, helped Cooper prepare a revised checklist for retrofire. Due to the system malfunctions, many of the steps would have to be done manually. Only Hawaii and Zanzibar were in radio range on this last orbit, but communications were good. Cooper noted that the carbon dioxide level was rising in the cabin and in his spacesuit. He told Carpenter as he passed over Zanzibar, "Things are beginning to stack up a little." Throughout the problems, Cooper remained cool, calm and collected.
At the end of the 21st orbit, Cooper again contacted Glenn on the Coastal Sentry Quebec. He reported the spacecraft was in retro attitude and holding manually. The checklist was complete. Glenn gave a ten-second countdown to retrofire. Cooper kept the spacecraft aligned at a 34 degree pitchdown angle and manually fired the retrorockets on "Mark!".
Fifteen minutes later the Faith 7 landed just four miles (6 km) from the prime recovery ship, the carrier USS Kearsarge. This was the most accurate landing to date, despite the lack of automatic controls.