Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown
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Bridging the Technology Gap: Project Gemini
Even as the Mercury program was underway and Apollo hardware was beginning
development, NASA program managers recognized that there was a huge
gap in the capability for human spaceflight between that acquired with Mercury
and what would be required for a lunar landing. They closed most of the gap by
experimenting and training on the ground, but some issues required experience
in space. Several major areas immediately arose where this was the case. These
included the following major mission requirements, as defined in the Gemini
crew familiarization manual:
A. Accomplish 14-day Earth orbital flights, thus validating that humans
could survive a journey to the Moon and back to Earth.
B. Demonstrate rendezvous and docking in Earth orbit.
C. Provide for controlled land landing as the primary recovery mode.
D. Develop simplified countdown techniques to aid rendezvous missions
(lessens criticality of launch window).
E. Determine man’s capabilities in space during extended missions (I-52). 117
These major initiatives defined the Gemini program and its 10 human spaceflight
missions conducted in the 1965 to 1966 period. 118
NASA conceived of Project Gemini first as a larger Mercury “Mark II” capsule,
but soon it became a totally different vehicle. It could accommodate two
astronauts for extended flights of more than two weeks. It pioneered the use of
fuel cells instead of batteries to power the ship, and it incorporated a series of
modifications to hardware. Its designers also toyed with the possibility of using a
paraglider being developed at Langley Research Center for land landings instead
of a “splashdown” in water and recovery by the Navy. 119 The whole system was to
be powered by the newly developed Titan II launch vehicle, another ballistic missile
developed for the Air Force. A central reason for this program was to perfect
techniques for rendezvous and docking, so NASA appropriated from the military
some Agena rocket upper stages and fitted them with docking adapters to serve as
the targets for rendezvous operations.
117. NASA Flight Crew Operations Division, “Gemini Familiarization Package,” 3 August 1962.
Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC.
118. The standard work on Project Gemini is Barton C. Hacker and James M. Grimwood, On
Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4203, 1977). See also David
M. Harland, How NASA Learned To Fly in Space: An Exciting Account of the Gemini Missions (Burlington,
ON, Canada: Apogee Books, 2004).
119. Barton C. Hacker, “The Idea of Rendezvous: From Space Station to Orbital Operations,
in Space-Travel Thought, 1895–1951,” Technology and Culture 15 (July 1974): pp. 373–388; Barton C.
Hacker, “The Genesis of Project Apollo: The Idea of Rendezvous, 1929–1961,” Actes 10: Historic des
techniques (Paris: Congress of the History of Science, 1971), pp. 41–46; Barton C. Hacker and James
M. Grimwood, On Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4203,
1977), pp. 1–26.