Moon Project Gemini: The World's Most Dangerous Space Program

Video from the channel Absolute Documentaries about Project Gemini, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 52:11. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary covering Project Gemini, the crewed program NASA ran between Mercury and Apollo to master the techniques a Moon voyage required: orbital rendezvous, docking, spacewalks and long-duration flights. The piece follows chronologically the uncrewed flights and the ten crewed missions, with their successes and numerous malfunctions.

After Kennedy's 1961 announcement, NASA still did not know how to reach the Moon. Direct ascent with the Nova launcher, Earth-orbit rendezvous, and lunar-orbit rendezvous proposed at Langley were studied, and the latter ultimately won out. Since the large Saturn rockets would take time to be ready, Gemini served as a bridging program. It used a version of the Titan II missile and a two-seat McDonnell capsule derived from Mercury, with a flight computer, the ability to change orbit, and ejection seats instead of an escape tower. The Agena stage, launched atop an Atlas, served as the docking target. A Rogallo wing for landing on land and the Air Force's AMU maneuvering unit were tested and then dropped.

Gemini 3 (March 1965, Grissom and Young) was the first crewed spacecraft to change orbit. On Gemini 4, Ed White performed the first American spacewalk. Gemini 5 broke Bykovsky's duration record despite fuel cell failures. Gemini 6's Agena was lost, so the mission, renamed 6A, rendezvoused in orbit with Gemini 7, which spent 14 days in space. Elliot See and Charles Bassett died in 1966 when their T-38 crashed into the McDonnell plant. Gemini 8, with Armstrong and Scott, achieved the first docking, but a stuck thruster forced an emergency return to the Pacific. On Gemini 9, the ATDA adapter shroud prevented docking. After the difficulties Collins and Gordon faced outside the spacecraft, NASA introduced pool training and added more handholds and footholds. With these, Aldrin completed a 2-hour, 6-minute spacewalk on Gemini 12. The documentary closes by linking these techniques to those used on the International Space Station.