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 The
more than 1,800 days that divided the 7th of December 1961, when Project
Gemini was officially approved, from the 15th of November 1966, when the
program's last two fliers returned from orbit, spanned a significant
phase of human venture into space. Gemini provided techniques,
equipment, and experience that helped bridge the difficult translation
from experimental, Earth-orbiting Mercury to ambitious, lunar-landing
Apollo. Gemini achieved its goals, save for land landing, quietly,
systematically, and, in some degree, economically. To a large extent, at
least in the general American viewpoint, the regularly flying and highly
successful Gemini marked America's ascendency to first place in the
space race. And its spacecraft, simpler and more efficiently designed
than Apollo's (which still relied on stacked and integrated components
rather than complete modules), was frequently and mistakenly cited as
contributing to the Apollo concept. |
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