Gemini : steps to the moon / David J. Shayler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shayler, David, 1955-

Series:

Springer-Praxis books in astronomy and space sciences

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Project Gemini (U.S.).

Physical Description:

xxxviii, 433 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Springer ; Chichester, UK : In association with Praxis Pub., [2001]

Summary:

In May 1961 President John F. Kennedy promised the American people that there would be a manned Moon landing by the end of the decade -- but at this time the longest that any astronaut had spent in space was 15 minutes. In his speech, Kennedy spoke of the mammoth efforts needed to achieve this goal, in commitment, funds and technology. Gemini: Steps to the Moon is the story of the second phase of that effort, from the perspective of the engineers, flight controllers and astronauts who were involved. It follows the development of the program from its earliest days to the splashdown of the final mission in November 1966. David Shayler documents the growing mastery of the essential challenges of extended duration flight, rendezvous and docking, space-walking and the creation of an experienced team of astronauts and flight controllers. Drawing upon air-to-ground commentary, as well as interviews and personal recollections, the 'bridge to Apollo' is constructed chapter by exciting chapter.

Contents:

Origins 1

To the edge of space 2

Controlling the high ground 3

Three-phase co-operation 4

The dawn of the Space Age 6

The creation of NASA 8

The Mercury Seven 9

USAF space policy in 1959 11

Mercury Mark II 12

An advance programme 13

Three ways to go 13

Kazakhstan, Florida, Washington and the Moon 15

Mercury Mark II developments 18

Way out west 19

Choosing the way to go to the Moon 20

The heavenly twins 21

What's in a name? 22

Co-operation and division 24

Conflict and frustration 24

The clock is running 25

Hardware 27

The Gemini budget, 1962-1967 28

Gemini spacecraft features 29

Construction of the Re-entry Module 30

The re-entry heat shield 33

Escape tower or ejection seats? 34

A window on the world 35

Re-entry Module power supply and control 36

Features of the Adapter Module 36

Spacecraft sub-systems 38

Launch vehicles 55

Titan II 55

Atlas-Agena D 59

Target vehicles 60

Agena D 60

The Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) 61

Ground support 61

Gemini mission management 61

The Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas 62

Building 30: Mission Control Center, Houston (MCC-H) 66

Mission Operations and Control Room (MOCR) 66

Gemini Mission Operations and Control Room (MOCR) 66

Cape Kennedy (Canaveral), Florida 70

LC 14 Atlas Agena 74

Tracking and communications 75

Recovery support 76

Preparations 79

The spaceflight logbook, 1961 79

The Mercury Seven 80

The first USAF 'space pilots' 80

The Next Nine 83

Training the Next Nine 85

Astronaut 'grubby school' 86

CB technical assignments 87

Classrooms, deserts, jungles and a vomit Comet 89

ARPS Class III and Class IV 91

The Fourteen 93

The first black astronaut 97

Astronaut training, 1964 98

Filling the seats 100

Initial Gemini crew assignments 101

Shepard grounded 104

The announcement of the first assignments 105

The first astronaut fatality 108

Long-duration crews 108

Rendezvous and docking crews 109

Gemini veterans move to Apollo 110

The loss of See and Bassett 111

Training for a Gemini mission 113

Launch 115

In-flight 115

Re-entry and landing 121

Practice makes perfect 121

Flight Operations 125

Planning for flight 125

Mercury Mark II flight plans 125

A new forecast 127

A new year and a new name 128

Test hardware 129

Boilerplates and test articles 129

Project Orbit 130

Escalation of costs 131

Objectives and manifests 132

The Gemini pre-launch sequence 135

The Gemini missions, 1964-1966 136

Flight tests: Gemini 1, 2 and 3, 1964-1965 136

Extending the duration: Gemini 4, 5 and 7, 1965 141

Initial rendezvous and docking operations: Gemini 6, 8 and 9, 1965-1966 147

Pushing the envelope: Gemini 10, 11 and 12, 1966 155

Gemini 12 (GT-12, or GT-XII) 159

Enter Apollo 160

Flight Tests 163

Testing the ejector seat system 163

SOPE tests 164

'A hell of a headache, but a short one' 165

Ballute and SNORT 166

Trouble with the Titan 168

No risk to Gemini 170

Addressing the problems 170

More tests and more problems 172

Gemini 1A proposed 172

Replacing the Titan with the saturn 1B 173

Titan II success at last 173

Gemini test flights 174

'Something wrong with the range clock' 175

'A storybook sort of flight' 177

Flight 1 analysis 178

Gemini 2 (GT-2) 179

Battling with the elements 179

Three cosmonauts in one spacecraft 180

More delays 181

The flight of Gemini 2 182

The condition of the heat shield 183

Houston monitors the flight 183

Gemini 3 (GT-3) 184

Leonov steps outside 185

'You're on your way, Molly Brown' 185

Into orbit 187

The manoeuvres of Molly Brown 188

A bite to eat 190

The return of Molly Brown 191

'That was no boat' 192

Tests concluded 194

Endurance 197

The 14-day target 197

The fuel cell issue 198

Biomedical instrumentation 199

The long-duration missions 201

Four days of Gemini 4 201

Gemini 4 habitability 201

Are you being good? 205

The day the straw men fell down 205

Eight days or bust! 206

Gemini 5 habitability 206

Evaluation of the mission 210

From outer space to inner space 210

Up to the ears in garbage 211

'Busting' the record 211

In the front seat of a Volkswagen 213

'We're on our way, Frank' 213

The grass needs mowing 215

The G5C spacesuit 215

Gemini 7 habitability 217

'Going back to Houston' 221

Rendezvous and Docking 225

Theory and practise 225

Space brothers 226

Heavenly twins 226

The Agena target vehicle 227

Agena B 227

The change to Agena D 228

Alternative concepts 229

Plans for Gemini-Agena 230

Rendezvous considerations 232

Docking with the Agena 234

Collision course docking 235

Rendezvous and docking activities 237

The learning curve 237

Gemini 4 and the other first step 237

The 'brute force' method 238

Rendezvous or EVA? 238

Orbital 'catch up' 239

Gemini 5 and Conrad's 'little rascal' 239

Phantom Agena 240

Seven... six... count-down to rendezvous 241

A dramatic loss of telemetry 242

Stalled on the pad 243

A rapid-fire launch 243

'You're out of your minds' 244

Gemini 7 and a tumbling Titan 245

'We saw it ignite

we saw it shut down' 245

Third time lucky 246

'A lot of traffic' 246

'We'll see you on the beach' 249

Agena, ATDA and an alligator 250

'We'll take that one' 250

'It's a real smoothy' 251

Tumbling end over end 252

A violent roll 253

New approach, new target, old problem 254

If at first... 255

'An angry alligator' 256

Revised plans 256

Agenas, altitudes and tethers 257

Gemini 10's ambitious flight plan 257

Riding a rascal 258

From Agena to Agena 259

To the high frontier 260

From pad to Agena in one orbit 260

'The world is round' 262

All tied up 263

Second rendezvous 264

The last mission 264

A second tether exercise 266

Eva Operations 269

EVA from Gemini 269

Gemini EVA guidelines 270

The EVA programme 271

Plans for the first stand-up EVA 272

Stand-up becomes full exit 273

Gemini 4 EVA 273

Gemini 4 EVA hardware 274

Stepping out 276

'Absolutely no sensation of falling' 277

'You dirty dog' 278

'Get back in' 278

Physically exhausted 279

A difficult act to follow 279

The short-lived plans for Gemini 6/7 EVA 279

Gemini 8 EVA plans 280

Gemini 8 EVA equipment 281

Scott's EVA preparations 281

Learning the hard way 282

Tether or no tether? That is the question 283

Gemini 9 EVA equipment 283

The Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit 285

All fogged up 287

'Getting in no problem' 290

EVA at Agena 290

Irritation of the eyes 291

Lessons learned 293

Penultimate EVA 293

Gemini 11 EVA equipment 293

'Ride 'em cowboy!' 294

Asleep hanging out of the hatch 296

The EVA Review Board 296

The finale 297

Gemini 12 EVA equipment 297

Opening the door 298

The final steps 298

Tools, tethers, hand-holds and slippers 298

The final exit 300

Re-Entry and Landing 303

Development of the paraglider 303

Controlled re-entry 304

Rogallo's wing 304

Land landing for Mark II 304

Landing Gemini by paraglider 306

The paraglider development programme 307

FRC's Paraglider Research Vehicle 308

The North American Aviation test programme 308

The test vehicle programme 310

The test vehicle 310

The test profile 311

The drop test programme 311

Helicopter drop tests 313

Delays and redirection 313

Helicopter tows and parachute drops 314

Testing continued 315

The loss of the paraglider 316

Parachute recovery 317

Summary of re-entry and recovery 318

Gemini 2 318

Gemini 3 318

Gemini 4 318

Gemini 5 320

Gemini 6 321

Gemini 7 322

Gemini 8 323

A pinpoint landing 325

The

final three 326

The record of achievements 329

Experiments 331

Experiments on Gemini 331

From proposal to experiment 332

Technical regulations and procedures 333

The selection of experiments 334

Operational requirements 335

Public image 335

Integration of experiments 336

Mission integration 336

Crew integration 337

Mission planning 337

The experiments 337

Biomedical experiments 338

Manned Spacecraft Center experiments 340

Technological experiments 343

Department of Defense experiments 344

Space science experiments 349

Space photography 356

Military Gemini 361

The X-20 Dyna Soar 361

USAF co-operation in Gemini 362

USAF Gemini plans, 1963 363

Discovery and Zenit 364

The Martin Marietta report, April 1963 364

Possible DoD Gemini missions 365

The NASA/DoD Joint Ad Hoc Study Group report, May 1963 367

Objectives of the Air Force programme 367

Blue Gemini 368

Air Force astronaut crew participation 371

Study group summary, collusion and recommendations 372

The demise of Blue Gemini and the emergence of the MOL 373

Gemini 2 flies again 376

Gemini B 377

Design considerations 379

MOL astronauts 380

Crew training 383

A Place in History 385

Lost missions of Gemini 385

Lunar Gemini 385

Rescue and logistics 386

Power to the cause 387

Space rescue 388

Logistics spacecraft 389

McDonnell's Big G study 389

A Gemini observatory 390

A satellite retrieval mission 391

A place in history 392

The end of the programme 397

Steps to the Moon 398

The astronauts 401.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [423]-425) and index.

ISBN:

1852334053

OCLC:

47182052