Page 38 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

In May 1961 President John F. Kennedy announced to an astonished world that by 1969 America would land people on the Moon. To achieve this, astronauts and scientists would have to find out the effects on people of long flights, how to maneuver a spacecraft, how to meet and dock with another spacecraft, and how to walk in space (now called EVA, or extravehicular activity).
The program to accomplish this bold move to the boundaries of science and technology was to be called Gemini, and it would be a triumph of using (simple) computer technology. It was also a feat that the Soviet Union did not have the resources to match.
Gemini
Gemini was a two-astronaut, bell-shaped spacecraft made up of the reentry capsule and a section containing the retrorockets. There was also an on-board computer.
To get these spacecraft into orbit, a new launcher was needed. It was called Titan 2.
There were ten manned spacecraft missions, each designed to test yet one more aspect of the techniques needed to accomplish the journey to the Moon.
By Gemini 4 the first American was making an EVA.
The combination
of Gemini 6 and 7 produced the first rendezvous in space. They did not dock, but came within
30 cm of one another.
 Gemini liftoff using the Titan 2 launcher.
capsule A small pressurized space vehicle.
dock To meet with and attach to another space vehicle.
extravehicular activity Any
task performed by people outside the protected environment of a space vehicle’s pressurized compartments. Extravehicular activities (EVA) include repairing equipment in the Space Shuttle bay.
launcher A system of propellant tanks and rocket motors or engines designed to lift a payload into space. It may, or may not, be part of a space vehicle.
orbit The path followed by one object as it tracks around another.
retrorocket A rocket that fires against the direction of travel in order to slow down a space vehicle.
 Spectacular EVA on Gemini .
38