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

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First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
e. Range Control
Modest lift capability is provided during reentry by offsetting
the spacecraft center of gravity.
Lift is controlled by rolling the spacecraft about the reentry
vector. Greater reentry range and an increased heat load
result from this feature which allows point return.
f. Paraglider
An inflatable paraglider and conventional landing gear
provide for subsonic flight control and horizontal landing.
[3]
g. Extra-vehicular Operations
The Gemini hatch is designed to permit the crew to leave
the spacecraft while in orbit. Specific experiments and extravehicular
suit provisions have not been defined.
Document I-53
Document Title: Charles W. Mathews, Manager, Gemini Program, “Program Plan
for Gemini Extravehicular Operation,” 31 January 1964.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division,
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
As the Mark II spacecraft was being designed and redesigned, one of the changes involved
the addition of a large mechanical hatch that, in addition to facilitating entry and exit
to the spacecraft and allowing the use of ejection seats, would also permit an astronaut to
leave the spacecraft in orbit. But the idea was only discussed sporadically for the next few
years, since it was not necessary for the Apollo program and it was planned that any extravehicular
activity (EVA) experiments would be done late in the program. In January 1964,
this preliminary plan for EVA operations was developed, but it was not enthusiastically
received within NASA. At a press conference in July 1964, Gemini Deputy Manager
Kenneth Kleinknecht had suggested that a limited EVA was possible during Gemini IV, but
this remark had gone unnoticed. James McDivitt and Edward White, the primary crew for
Gemini IV (called GT-4 in this document), and their backups Frank Borman and James
Lovell, Jr., lobbied hard for the inclusion of the EVA mission in the Gemini IV flight and
ultimately swayed opinions at NASA. An EVA on the Gemini IV mission was approved
on 25 May 1965. The fact that the Soviet Union had carried out the first-ever EVA on 18
March 1965 was clearly a factor in that approval, but the intent to do EVAs during Project
Gemini had been part of the program plan from the start.