Upstaging Continues
On March 23, 1965, the Gemini 3 astronauts blasted off the launch pad at 9:24 A.M. Onboard was Virgil Goissom, who died tragically two years later and John Young, who was destined to become commander on the first space shuttle flight. The five hour flights found the crew changing their craft’s orbit three times, the first time any manned craft had maneuvered in orbit. The flight had been scheduled for November but it wasn’t until now that the first manned Gemini (Gemini 3) was ready to lift off. Even though NASA had planned that they would send the first space flight into orbit with a multiple crew.
But the Russians had twice beaten them. They had launched the Voshkod 1 craft with the three people onboard the previous October, then Voshkod 2 went into orbit with a crew of two only five days before Gemini’s maiden flight. With this endeavour, the Russians were way ahead of NASA goals. The world’s first spacewalk was completed by Alexis Leonov, which made matters even worse for America’s space program. However, Gemini’s flight went as planned, providing the space worthiness of the new design. When young brought a corn beef sandwich on board, ground control was concerned, wondering what effect the weightless crumbs might have on the delicate control system of Gemini. Even though splashdown was some 50 miles off-target, the spacecraft kept afloat unlike Goissom’s first one.
Then on June 3, a four-day mission for manned Gemini 4 took off with crew members, James McDivitt and Edward White. During the 3rd orbit, White drifted slowly out into space at the end of a 25 foot (7.5 meters) umbilical-tether. He said “the view must be worth a million dollars.” White tumbled head over heals by means of a pressurized gas gun. After 22 minutes, his 17,500 mph gymnastics came to an end. Because White was fatigued after the experience, NASA experts wondered if space walking would be a problem. The splashdown of Gemini 5 on August 29, 1965, was nearly twice as far off as Gemini 4. It was considered minor to an otherwise near-perfect 8-day mission. The flight carried fuel cells to provide electrical power. This was a first and every US manned aircraft since has carried the equipment as standard, providing drinking water for the astronauts. More extensive, spacewalking, and rendezvous and docking maneuvers with unmanned Agena target vehicles were activities that the remaining Gemini flights concentrated on.
In March of 1966, the Gemini 8 mission completed the first attempt in docking in orbit with an Agena, but had to stop minutes later when the maneuvering thrusters fired uncontrollably. It caused the Gemini-Agena combination to gyrate wildly. On the remaining flights, the dockings were successful. In November of 1966, as the Gemini program ended, Gemini 12 astronauts had perfected docking and rendezvous maneuvers. Spacewalking fatigue was no longer a problem as Gemini 12 astronaut Edwin Aldrin walked in space for over two hours. The accuracy of splashdown had improved greatly with Gemini 9A only 600 yards from the recovery ship. The Gemini program, with ten manned flights, received all their objectives and put the United States in the forefront in the space race.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Mission History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
