Gemini was the intermediate manned space flight program between
America's first steps into space with Mercury and the amazing and
unprecedented accomplishments achieved during the manned lunar
expeditions of Apollo. Because of its position between these two
other efforts, Gemini is probably less remembered. Still, it more
than had its place in man's progress into this new frontier. Gemini
accomplishments were manyfold. They included many firsts: first
astronaut-controlled maneuvering in space; first rendezvous in
space of one spacecraft with another; first docking of one
spacecraft with a propulsive stage and use of that stage to
transfer man to high altitude; first traverse of man into the
Earth's radiation belts; first extended manned flights of a week or
more in duration; first extended stays of man outside his
spacecraft; first controlled reentry and precision landing; and
many more. These achievements were significant in ways one cannot
truly evaluate even today, but two things stand out: (1) it was the
time when America caught up and surpassed the Soviet Union in
manned space flight, and (2) these demonstrations of capability
were an absolute prerequisite to the phenomenal Apollo
accomplishments then yet to come. Project Gemini is now little
remembered, having vanished into that special limbo reserved for
the successful intermediate steps in a fast-moving technological
advance. Conceived and approved in 1961, the second major project
in the American manned space flight program carried men into orbit
in 1965 and 1966. Gemini thus kept Americans in space between the
path-breaking but limited Earth-orbital missions of Project Mercury
and the far more ambitious Project Apollo, which climaxed in 1969
when two men first set foot on the Moon. This book is a detailed
history of the failures and victories of the Gemini program.
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