THE TWELVE GEMINI MISSIONS NASA GEMINI PROGRAM FILM 78084

This 1960s NASA film tells the story of the 12 Gemini missions. Project Gemini was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Gemini was a United States space program that started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten crews flew low Earth orbit (LEO) missions between 1965 and 1966. It put the United States in the lead during the Cold War Space Race against the Soviet Union. Gemini's objective was to develop space travel techniques to support Apollo's mission to land astronauts on the Moon. Gemini achieved missions long enough for a trip to the Moon and back, perfected working outside the spacecraft with extra-vehicular activity (EVA), and pioneered the orbital maneuvers necessary to achieve space rendezvous and docking. With these new techniques proven by Gemini, Apollo could pursue its prime mission without doing these fundamental exploratory operations. All Gemini flights were launched from Launch Complex 19 (LC-19) at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida. Its launch vehicle was the Gemini–Titan II, a modified Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Gemini was the first program to use the newly built Mission Control Center at the Houston Manned Spacecraft Center for flight control. The astronaut corps that supported Project Gemini included the "Mercury Seven", "The New Nine", and the 1963 astronaut class. During the program, three astronauts died in air crashes during training, including the prime crew for Gemini 9. This mission was performed by the backup crew, the only time that had happened in NASA's history to date. Gemini was robust enough that the United States Air Force planned to use it for the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) program, which was later canceled. Gemini's chief designer, Jim Chamberlin, also made detailed plans for cislunar and lunar landing missions in late 1961. He believed Gemini could perform lunar operations before Project Apollo, and cost less. NASA's administration did not approve those plans. In 1969, McDonnell-Douglas proposed a "Big Gemini" that could have been used to shuttle up to 12 astronauts to the planned space stations in the Apollo Applications Project (AAP). The only AAP project funded was Skylab – which used existing spacecraft and hardware – thereby eliminating the need for Big Gemini. In this film, the viewer is told about the plan for each of the 12 Gemini flights. They are put into the context of the goal of lunar landing and exploration. The limits of the equipment, fuel, and humans are tested along with activities deemed necessary for such a landing. The film includes a space walk at 10:16 and docking. Specifically, we see Earth from space 2:04 and 8:37, the spacecraft on a parachute (9:04) and the craft on the deck of a ship (9:37) and the ground crew (12:28). We are reminded that space exploration had to be defended politically as useful for the earth-bound by shots of a hurricane forming (14:40) and the jet stream (14.56). We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com