#Gemini Spacecraft

[chernobog13]

I was actually old enough to enter this contest when it appeared. However, I wasn't quite old enough to understand all the fine print. It was one of my uncles who talked me out of entering.

The thing was, this full-size Gemini mock-up from McDonald Douglas wasn't yours if you won the contest; you had to donate it to a museum or park. As my uncle pointed out, if I won the closest museum that might've accepted the Gemini capsule was probably in New York City, at least an hour away from my house by car or train.

I thought this was a big con job. What kid wouldn't want their own space capsule at home? And who would want to donate it to a museum, where you'd never get to play with it?

Man, my parents could've filled the thing with snacks and locked me inside, and I wouldn't have bothered them all summer long!

Some kid in Portland, OR named Robbie Alan Hanshew won the thing, and donated it to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I bet he never even got to sit in it.

Still, it's probably just as well I never entered the contest or won. Me sainted mum would'nt have let me keep the other part of the prize: every single Revell model kit (approximately 200 at the time). She thought model kits were a waste of time when I should be outside playing, or mowing the lawn, or weeding the garden, or any other of the dozens of chores she had lined up to fill my every waking moment when I wasn't in school.

She probably thought I was gonna get high off the model glue, too.

[spacewonder19]

Planet Jupiter © Juno, Gemini North, Hubble

[lonestarflight]

"An overall view of the Manned Spacecraft Center's Mission Control Center, during the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Gemini-7 spaceflight."

Date: December 7, 1965

NASA ID: S65-60037, S65-60039

[astronotmovie]

The final Gemini mission. Astronauts James Lovell & Buzz Aldrin flew Gemini XII; the 10th & final crewed mission on Project Gemini, Nov 1966. The 3-day, 22-hour, 59-orbit mission saw Aldrin perform 3 EVAs totalling 5.5 hours. This accomplishment met a major goal for NASA by demonstrating astronauts could work outside a spacecraft for extended periods of time. It was Buzz’s rookie flight while Lovell had flown on Gemini 7. The backup crew for the mission was Gene Cernan & Gordon Cooper.

[stone-cold-groove]

From 1965: earth view from the Gemini-Titan 3 mission.

[piratesexmachine420]

It's interesting to note that all but one of the four manned spaceplane to make a flight above the 50 mile US definition of space have had a LOCV, namely:

X-15 no. 3 on X-15 Flight 3-65-97 (1967)

OV-099 Challenger on STS-51-L (1986)

OV-102 Columbia on STS-107 (2003)

VSS Enterprise (N339SS) on PF04 (2014)

Only SpaceShipOne avoided catastrophe. Perhaps that's because it was the safest of the bunch, perhaps it's only due to a small sample size of 15 non-captive flights. I lean towards the latter -- there were a lot of problems across those 15 flights.

[robinwaaaaa]

Sputnik 1 is 6x as heavy as Explorer. So, it is possible that he could carry him...

Oh, totally. But Sputnik's all about surprises, so why stop there?

(They live in low earth orbit with zero-G so it technically works both ways.)

[abcmuushroom]

story of the day:

the spacecraft Gemini 3 had the call name "Molly Brown." the astronauts named it- when management tried to get them to change it, they suggested "Titanic" instead, and got to keep "Molly Brown."

that was the last space shuttle the astronauts were allowed to name.

[talesfromthenorsesmouth]

aw fuck i miss david bowie again guys

[michaelgabrill]

[fandomate]

[maddyaddy]

It's pretty interesting to think about how manned space capsule design, at least with the US programs, evolved so rapidly in 10 years (1958-1968). Case in point. Mercury's only real capability, flight-wise, was to orbit the Earth. It couldn't change its trajectory mid-orbit; it had to reenter the atmosphere to do that. Gemini, however, could use vernier thrusters to change its orbit by translation and did so in March of 1965. For the uninitiated among us, verniers are gimbaled thrusters that allow you to rotate and translate a spacecraft. Gemini could even rendezvous with another spacecraft in orbit.

Apollo's CSM, obviously, was capable of far more. Gemini, in fact, was a crash program to serve as a proof of concept for technologies developed for it. But in 10 years from the first American manned spaceflight, we have Apollo Block II - which can go from the moon and back. Truly fascinating.

[lonestarflight]

"Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee is shown at console in the Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas during the Gemini-Titan 3 flight."

Date: March 23, 1965

NASA ID: S65-18058

[siryl]

Art by Davis Meltzer.

Flying solo, duo & trio via a little, medium & big rocket. The 3 spacecraft & relative rockets of Project Mercury, Gemini & Apollo. The 3 spacecraft were used between 1961-72 during the space race. The Mercury capsule carried food, water & O2 supplies for about a day. Project Gemini was the 1st to use Houston for Mission Control. Astronaut Gus Grissom was involved so heavily in the design that the other Original 7 astronauts nicknamed it the ‘Gusmobile’. It measured 18 feet, 5 inches long & 10 feet wide; not a lot of room for 2 people! The Apollo Program used the 363-foot tall Saturn V rocket with the Command (Control Center)/Service (unpressurized) & Lunar Module perched on top, pointed straight at the moon!

[stone-cold-groove]

Astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin executing an EVA during the Gemini 12 mission - 1966.

[emperornorton47]

Scorch marks, Gemini 11