NASA Project Gemini

[Eric Mc]

Often overlooked but vital to the success of Apollo, the Gemini project allowed the USA to perfect a number of spaceflight techniques necessary for trips to the moon - rendevous and docking, orbital changes and EVA as well as long duration missions.


I have found an excellent set of posts on youtube which are essentially the live coverage of CBS's TV broadcasts in 1965 and 1966 covering most of these missions. Most of the transmissions were in colour (US TV had introduced colour in the early 1960s) and the anchor man for the broadcasts was the inimitable Walter Cronkite. I have found listening to these missions (their successes and failures) unfold in real time absolutely fascinating.

Here is a link to one of the Gemini 9 excerpts but you will see other Gemini missions listed on the web page.

Hope some people find this as interesting as I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elBqs5YnEvU&fea...

[Mojocvh]

The Gemini program was overlooked, but was probably THE most important, in terms of knowledge gained, of all NASA programs of that era.

[jingars]

Thanks, Eric - will seek to watch those.

Anyone wanting to read a history of Gemini could start with NASA's On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini. As it dates from a 1977 book it is heavy on word and short on pictures - but it is the definitive description and assessment of Gemini - and is free!

If you want to stump up some money, the David Harland's How NASA Learned to Fly in Space is an excellent balance of the technical and the human interest.

[Eric Mc]

Am reading Gene Kranz's autobiography "Failure is Not an Option" and am at the Gemini part of his story. So it's nice to be able to match what he is describing with the actual events as they unfolded.

[dr_gn]

Eric Mc said:

Often overlooked but vital to the success of Apollo, the Gemini project allowed the USA to perfect a number of spaceflight techniques necessary for trips to the moon - rendevous and docking, orbital changes and EVA as well as long duration missions.


I have found an excellent set of posts on youtube which are essentially the live coverage of CBS's TV broadcasts in 1965 and 1966 covering most of these missions. Most of the transmissions were in colour (US TV had introduced colour in the early 1960s) and the anchor man for the broadcasts was the inimitable Walter Cronkite. I have found listening to these missions (their successes and failures) unfold in real time absolutely fascinating.

Here is a link to one of the Gemini 9 excerpts but you will see other Gemini missions listed on the web page.

Hope some people find this as interesting as I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elBqs5YnEvU&fea...

That particular one isn't great TV Eric

Check this out though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JD4sxn4JOo&fea...

It's a man hanging from a crane over a big glitterball simulating what's happening in space. Brilliant.

[HoHoHo]

Eric Mc said:

Am reading Gene Kranz's autobiography "Failure is Not an Option" and am at the Gemini part of his story. So it's nice to be able to match what he is describing with the actual events as they unfolded.

He is on my wish list of dinner guests, imagine the stories he has to tell

[Eric Mc]

dr_gn said:

That particular one isn't great TV Eric

Check this out though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JD4sxn4JOo&fea...

It's a man hanging from a crane over a big glitterball simulating what's happening in space. Brilliant.

No, it doesn't make great TV viewing but it's an important [piece of history being relayed as it happened - which is why I found it so fascinating.

It also serves to show the limitations of TV in the mid 1960s and, for anyone who who takes for granted the standard of TV imagery today, it should let them know how basic things were back then.

One thing that did make me smile was the live coverage of the splashdowns from the carriers out in the Atlantic. In 2003 George Bush flew in a Lockheed Viking onto the deck of a carrier moored off San Diego to congratulate the Navy for their part in Iraqi Freedom. It was shown live on Sky News. The Sky News reporter said that it was amazing to see live TV being beamed off a carrier at sea and he expected it was the first time it had ever been done.

He'd obviously been born too late to appreciate that US TV was showing live images off carriers 38 years earlier.

[jmorgan]

Have to have a mooch at them vids.

That era is part of the time I would love to go back to and re live in their shoes. It was interesting reading the way it happened but then it was with a purpose where as the USSR would loft up a rocket with some highlight aimed at getting one over on the US but the US would look at it and wonder "Why? We don't need to do that." To me it showed a dogged approach to proving and achieving a goal.

Edit, not sure if this link will hold.
But I believe Buzz Aldrin rode a rocket for quite a while, wonder if this is from that ride.
link

All credit to http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

EDIT again, what is the etiquety for linking to pics from other sites so they show?

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 30th October 08:26

[Eric Mc]

That shot looks like it was taken from an astronaut standing up in the open hatchway. Buzz straddled an Agena on Gemini 12. That shot doesn't show an attached Agena.

Of course, the photos and cine film from the Gemini missions are much more dramatic than the TV images. Indeed, there was NO live TV from US manned spacecraft until Apollo 7 in 1968 (which caused a row between the commander Wally Schirra and NASA mission planners). So, all the live TV coverage of the Gemini missions is made up of TV studio shots, models and simulations - with relay of the astonauts voice communications.

In fact, initially NASA would not let the TV companies and their equipment and personel into Mission Control, a fact which Walter Cronkite has a bit of a go at in the Gemini 6 coverage.
It was only with Apollo that NASA relented and began to allow the media better access to Mission Control and, of course, live on board footage.

[jmorgan]

Drat. Thought I might get it wrong somewhere, should have lifted the tome up first. Still, cracking stuff.

[jingars]

"Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., pilot of the Gemini 12 space flight, took this picture of the Gemini 12 spacecraft during standup extravehicular activity (EVA) with the hatch open."

From the JSC Digital Image Collection

[Eric Mc]

Must have been either before or after they docked.

Aldrin's EVA was the first properly executed EVA in the history of manned spaceflights. All previous EVA's (with exception of Ed White's on Gemini 4 - in which he had no real tasks to perform) had encountered serious difficulties - almost fatal in the case of Alexei Leonov and Gene Cernan.

[Ozone]

I am very interested in the Gemini stuff but haven't done alot of detailed reseach and get baffled by the NASA web site on it's information so thanks for the links.

A few years ago i had the chance to visit NASA in Florida and asked if we could visit to the Gemimi launch pads and was told by the guide they are just rusting pieces of falling down metal, why would i want to see them. I was dumb struck, they seemed only interested in Apollo and the Shuttle with a bit of history on the early rocket development. I hope to go back one day and do a tour of the military launch areas but that maybe a long way in the future if ever

[Eric Mc]

Agreed, NASA's website is too vast to navigate easily.

I am pretty sure the Titan Launch Complex 19 is now preserved. I've seen pictures of it taken recently and posted on here. The launch control room is also preserved.

[Ozone]

Yes i have seen pictures of the preserved site and i hope they do more but it was the lack of understanding of the history in front of them that i don't understand. The guide did say that the launch pads are always being updated and changed but they just lets some of the historic ones decay which i find so sad.

[jmorgan]

Here you go, though not quite what you are after, the history section on NASA does throw up some gems. There are some tomes converted to online reading, selection of which below. This is the history link http://history.nasa.gov/
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/...
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4205/contents.html
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4204/contents.html

[Eric Mc]

Americans aren't quite as fixated wioth history as we are here. Maybe that is changing but perhaps some aspects of their history have already been forgotten.

[jmorgan]

Yeah, recent stuff like this could be well documented. Chariots for Apollo (one of those links) was released many years ago then went out of print, so I was stuck to reading it on line. It has only recently been re printed, got a copy for a xmas or another.

[jmorgan]

jingars said:

"Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., pilot of the Gemini 12 space flight, took this picture of the Gemini 12 spacecraft during standup extravehicular activity (EVA) with the hatch open."

From the JSC Digital Image Collection

Forgot about that place.

[JW911]

Eric Mc said:

Am reading Gene Kranz's autobiography "Failure is Not an Option" and am at the Gemini part of his story. So it's nice to be able to match what he is describing with the actual events as they unfolded.

Just read it myself. I bought it as a souvenir from NASA in Florida in September. Very inspiring. Never realised Kranz was a F-86 Sabrejet driver either.

We did the Patrick AFB historic tour as well. Worth every penny if you have a bit of history in your veins. You get to visit all the historic pads (yes, a lot of old concrete and steel) but it also has the original museum with a replica of Alan Shepherd's rocket on the original pad next to the original (restored) launch battery control. Very cool. Take your passport though for that tour. It isn't required for the normal shuttle tour.

Edited by JW911 on Sunday 30th October 19:47