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| Mercury | Apollo | Skylab |



The Gemini Program was intended to be an intermediate step between Mercury and Apollo. The Gemini spacecraft carried two astronauts and it was the first spacecraft to use a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity.

Gemini astronauts performed the first orbital rendezvous and docking as well as the first American spacewalk. These abilities would be required if a manned mission to the Moon was to become a possibility. A land landing using Gemini was scheduled, but that mission was cancelled in 1964.

By the time the Gemini Program ended in 1966 the Americans were catching up with or even surpassing the Russians in the space race.

Main Objectives

  • Spend up to two weeks in orbit
  • Rendezvous and dock with another spacecraft
  • Perfect Earth re-entry and landing
Manned Missions
  • Gemini 3 'Molly Brown'
    March 23, 1965
    Virgil "Gus" Grissom, John Young
  • Gemini 4
    June 3-7, 1965
    James McDivitt, Edward White
  • Gemini 5
    August 21-29, 1965
    L. Gordon Cooper, Charles "Pete" Conrad
  • Gemini 7
    December 4-18, 1965
    Frank Borman, James Lovell
  • Gemini 6A
    December 15-16, 1965
    Walter Schirra, Thomas Stafford
  • Gemini 8
    March 16, 1966
    Neil Armstrong, David Scott
  • Gemini 9
    June 3-6, 1966
    Thomas Stafford, Eugene Cernan
    (Reassigned after the deaths of Elliot See and Charles Bassett)
  • Gemini 10
    July 18-21, 1966
    John Young, Michael Collins
  • Gemini 11
    September 12-15, 1966
    Charles "Pete" Conrad, Richard Gordon
  • Gemini 12
    November 11-15, 1966
    James Lovell, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin



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