Project Gemini

Gemini 3

- 23 Mar 1965 - 1st U.S. 2-man space mission - 1st to maneuver from one orbit to another with John Young Gemini 3 was the first manned mission in NASA's Gemini program. On March 23, 1965, astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young flew three low Earth orbits in their spacecraft, which they nicknamed Molly Brown It was also the final manned flight controlled from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida, before mission control functions were shifted to a new control center located at the newly opened Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. The mission's primary goal was to test the new, maneuverable Gemini spacecraft. In space, the crew fired thrusters to change the shape of their orbit, shift their orbital plane slightly, and drop to a lower altitude. Other firsts were achieved on Gemini 3: two people flew aboard an American spacecraft Gus Grissom, hoping to avoid duplication of the experience with his Mercury flight Liberty Bell 7 in which the capsule sank after splashdown, named the Gemini 3 spacecraft Molly Brown, in a playful reference to the Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown. NASA management did not like this name, and asked him to change it. Grissom replied, "How about the Titanic?". The managers relented and allowed Grissom to keep Molly Brown, but this was the last Gemini flight they allowed the astronauts to name. The only major incident during the orbital phase involved a contraband corned beef sandwich that Young had smuggled on board, hiding it in a pocket of his spacesuit After the flight our superiors at NASA let us know in no uncertain terms that non-man-rated corned beef sandwiches were out for future space missions. But John's deadpan offer of this strictly non-regulation goodie remains one of the highlights of our flight for me."[3] The crewmen each took a few bites before the sandwich was restowed. The crumbs it released could have wreaked havoc with the craft's electronics, so the crewmen were reprimanded when they returned to Earth. Other crews were warned not to pull the same type of stunt.[4] Two small failures occurred in-flight. The first was an experiment testing the synergistic effect of zero gravity on sea urchin eggs. A lever essential to the experiment broke off when pulled. The second involved the photographic coverage objective. It was only partially successful due to an improper lens setting on the 16 mm camera. pon landing, the astronauts decided to stay in the capsule, not wanting to open the hatch before the arrival of the recovery ship. The crew spent an uncomfortable half-hour in a spacecraft not designed to be a boat. Due to unexpected smoke from the thrusters, the astronauts decided to deviate from the post landing checklist and to keep their helmets on with the face plates closed for some time after splashdown.[5] USS Intrepid recovered the craft and crew. The Gemini III mission was supported by the following United States Department of Defense resources: 10,185 personnel, 126 aircraft and 27 ships.

Gemini 4

Gemini 4 (officially Gemini IV)[3] was the second manned space flight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth manned American spaceflight (including two X-15 flights at altitudes exceeding 100 kilometers (54 nmi)). Astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White circled the Earth 66 times in four days, making it the first US flight to approach the five-day flight of the Soviet Vostok 5. The highlight of the mission was the first space walk by an American, during which White floated free outside the spacecraft, tethered to it, for approximately 20 minutes. Both of these accomplishments helped the United States overcome the Soviet Union's early lead in the Space Race. Gemini 4 would be the first multi-day space flight by the United States, designed to show that it was possible for humans to remain in space for extended lengths of time. The four-day, 66-orbit flight[5] would approach but not break the five-day record set by the Soviet Vostok 5 in June 1963. Subsequent Gemini flights would be longer, to prove endurance exceeding the time required to fly to the Moon and back. A second objective was the first American extra-vehicular activity (EVA), known popularly as a "space walk". The first space walk had already been performed by Soviet Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 in March 1965. NASA moved up the spacewalk from the original schedule, to demonstrate that the US was gaining on the early lead taken by the Soviets in what was known as the Space Race. As late as 11 days before the scheduled June 3 launch, newspapers were reporting that NASA was saying it "had not yet determined whether White would be the first American astronaut to expose himself to the elements of space," and that "A decision might not be made until a day or two before launching." [6] Gemini 4 would be the first multi-day space flight by the United States, designed to show that it was possible for humans to remain in space for extended lengths of time. The four-day, 66-orbit flight[5] would approach but not break the five-day record set by the Soviet Vostok 5 in June 1963. Subsequent Gemini flights would be longer, to prove endurance exceeding the time required to fly to the Moon and back. Gemini 4's crew originally intended to call their spacecraft American Eagle, but this was rejected after NASA management issued a memo saying that they did not want a repeat performance of the previous mission, on which Gus Grissom had named his spacecraft Molly Brown.[12] The callsign for the mission became simply Gemini 4. There was no patch flown on the crew's suits, although the one shown here, created after the fact, is on display in McDivitt's museum. Since McDivitt and White were prohibited from naming their spacecraft, they decided to put the American flag on their suits, the first astronauts to do so, although Soviet crews wore the Cyrillic "СССР" on their spacesuit helmets. Previous astronauts had only had the NASA insignia and a strip with their name on their suits. The flight was commemorated on a pair of US postage stamps in 1967.

Gemini 5

Gemini 5 (officially Gemini V)[3] was a 1965 manned spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini. L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.[5] Second and last spaceflight Pilot Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.[5] First spaceflight Gemini 5 doubled the U.S space-flight record of the Gemini 4 mission to eight days, the length of time it would take to fly to the Moon, land and return. This was possible due to new fuel cells that generated enough electricity to power longer missions, a pivotal innovation for future Apollo flights, instead of the chemical batteries used on previous manned spacecraft. Conrad, who had a reputation for frequently having a punchline on hand, called the mission "Eight days in a garbage can." (the garbage can referring to the small size of the Gemini cabin, which was about the size of the front seat of a Volkswagen Beetle) This was the first NASA mission to have an insignia patch. After Gemini 3, NASA banned astronauts from naming their spacecraft. Cooper, having realized he had never been in a military organization without one, suggested a mission patch to symbolize the flight. NASA agreed, and the patches got the generic name of "Cooper patch."[7] Cooper chose the image of a covered wagon due to the pioneering nature of the flight. The slogan "8 Days or Bust" was emblazoned across the wagon, but NASA managers objected to this, feeling it placed too much emphasis on the mission length and not the experiments, and fearing the public might see the mission as a failure if it did not last the full duration. A piece of nylon cloth was sewn over the official slogan.[8][9

Gemini 6

Gemini 6A (officially Gemini VI-A)[2] was a 1965 manned United States spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. The mission achieved the first manned rendezvous with another spacecraft, its sister Gemini 7 Position Astronaut Command Pilot Walter M. Schirra, Jr. Second spaceflight Pilot Thomas P. Stafford First spaceflight while the spacecraft passed over White Sands, New Mexico, the crew was to attempt to observe a laser beam originating from the ground. Original mission plans also included the first live television coverage of the recovery of a US spacecraft at sea from the recovery ship, the US aircraft carrier Wasp. The Wasp was fitted with ground station equipment by ITT to relay live television, via the Intelsat I (nicknamed the "Early Bird") satellite.[5] After reviewing the situation, NASA decided to launch an alternate Gemini 6A mission, eight days after the launch of Gemini 7, which was scheduled as a 14-day long-duration mission in December. Gemini 6A would perform the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit, using Gemini 7 as the target, though they would not dock. The crews also discussed the possibility of Stafford performing an EVA from 6A to 7, swapping places with Gemini 7 pilot Jim Lovell, but the commander of Gemini 7, Frank Borman, objected, pointing out that it would require Lovell to wear an uncomfortable EVA suit on a long-duration mission.[8] EVA extravehicular activity All went well right up to ignition; the engines ignited, but after about 1.5 seconds they abruptly shut down. Since the clock had started in the spacecraft, mission rules dictated that Wally Schirra, as the commander, had to immediately pull the D-ring between his knees and activate the ejection seats,[9] carrying the astronauts away from the disaster that would be the result of a fully fueled Titan II falling back onto LC-19. However, Schirra did not feel any movement and knew that the booster had not lifted, so he decided not to abort. His quick thinking probably saved the mission as the reliability of the Gemini ejector seats was questionable; the astronauts could have been badly injured from high g-forces as the seats had to launch them at least 800 feet, which was deemed a safe distance from an exploding Titan II. In addition, the cabin interior had been soaking in pure oxygen for hours. Tom Stafford, in a NASA oral history in 1997, later recalled: So it turns out what we would have seen, had we had to do that, would have been two Roman candles going out, because we were 15 or 16 psi, pure oxygen, soaking in that for an hour and a half. You remember the tragic fire we had at the Cape. (...) Jesus, with that fire going off and that, it would have burned the suits. Everything was soaked in oxygen. So thank God. That was another thing: NASA never tested it under the conditions that they would have had if they would have had to eject. They did have some tests at China Lake where they had a simulated mock-up of Gemini capsule, but what they did is fill it full of nitrogen. They didn't have it filled full of oxygen in the sled test they had.[10] John Young also recalled witnessing a test of the ejector seats where the test dummy was launched right through the capsule hatch, remarking, "That's a hell of a headache, but a hell of a short one..."[citation needed] Even if the astronauts had not been injured or killed, ejection would ruin the spacecraft and delay the mission for months. Music in space is music played in or broadcast from a spacecraft in outer space.[1][not in citation given] According to the Smithsonian Institution, the first musical instruments played in outer space were an 8-note Hohner "Little Lady" harmonica and a handful of small bells carried by American astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford aboard Gemini 6A.[2] Upon achieving a space rendezvous in Earth orbit with their sister ship Gemini 7 in December 1965, Schirra and Stafford played a rendition of "Jingle Bells" over the radio after jokingly claiming to have seen an unidentified flying object piloted by Santa Claus. The instruments had been smuggled on-board without NASA's knowledge, leading Mission Control director Elliot See to exclaim "You're too much" to Schirra after the song.[2] The harmonica was donated to the Smithsonian by Schirra in 1967, with his note that it "...plays quite well".[3] Walter Schirra explained the patch in the book All We Did Was Fly to the Moon: The Gemini 6 patch is hexagonal in shape, reflecting the mission number; and the spacecraft trajectory also traces out the number "6". The Gemini 6 spacecraft is shown superimposed on the "twin stars" Castor and Pollux, for "Gemini". I designed the patch to locate in the sixth hour of celestial right ascension. This was the predicted celestial area where the rendezvous should occur (in the constellation Orion). It finally did occur there. Gemini 6A space-flown Fliteline Medallion The original patch had called the flight GTA-6 (for Gemini-Titan-Agena) and showed the Gemini craft chasing an Agena. It was changed when the mission was altered to depict two Gemini spacecraft.

Project Gemini Goals

Project Gemini was started as a two-man program in 1962 to overcome the Soviets' lead and to support the Apollo manned lunar landing program, adding extravehicular activity (EVA) and rendezvous and docking to its objectives. The first manned Gemini flight, Gemini 3, was flown by Gus Grissom and John Young on March 23, 1965.[38] Nine missions followed in 1965 and 1966, demonstrating an endurance mission of nearly fourteen days, rendezvous, docking, and practical EVA, and gathering medical data on the effects of weightlessness on humans.