Ebook: On The Shoulder Of Titans. A History of Project Gemini

Gemini was the intermediate space flight program between America's first steps into space with Mercury and the amazing­ and unprecedented accomplishments achieved during the manned lunar expeditions of Apollo. Because of its position between these two other efforts, Gemini is probably less remembered. Still, it more than had its place in man's progress into this new frontier.
Gemini accomplishments were manyfold. They included many firsts: first astronaut-controlled maneuvering in space; first rendezvous in space of one spacecraft with another; first docking of one spacecraft with a propulsive stage and use of that stage to trans£er man to high altitude; first traverse of man into the Earth's radiation belts; first extended manned flights of a week or more in duration; first extended stays of man outside his spacecraft; first controlled reentry and precision landing; and many more.
These achievements were significant in ways one cannot truly evaluate even today, but two things stand out: (I) it was the time when America caught up and surpassed the Soviet Union in manned space flight, and (2) these demonstrations of capability were an absolute prerequisite to the phenomenal Apollo accomplishments then yet to come.
America's first manned space flight program, Mercury, involved a careful buildup of flight duration to slightly beyond one day with accompanying concerns about man's physiological response to weightlessness and other aspects of his safety and well being. In the meantime, the Russian effort had achieved durations of five days, flight of a multiple crew shortly after the Mercury Program had terminated, and the first extravehicular operation by a cosmonaut shortly before the first manned Gemini flight. The question at that time was who would perform the first rendezvous, seen as a very complex operation but absolutely needed for future space endeavors.