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[i]If a few well-intentioned experiments had worked out a little bit better than they did, Fort Hood might have a place in the history of space exploration to go along with its long-standing military reputation. Not only that, but the term "El Kabong" might have survived in popular culture as something of a scientific term instead of a character from a 1960s TV cartoon series. ...such a lofty goal required a certain amount of trial and error. A portion of that trial and error took place at Fort Hood, beginning in 1963 when NASA scientists arrived at the base to experiment with bringing a spacecraft and its astronauts back to earth instead of sea, as was the accepted practice. Scientists used a scaled-down Gemini capsule during the first two years of testing. The dummy capsule weighed about 400 pounds, or 4,600 pounds less than the real things. Tests with the miniature model went well enough to encourage NASA to test a full-scale model. The theory of bringing the capsule back to earth instead of sea centered on the use of a parasail-landing rocket system, which might sound simple but is anything but. The parasail, or parachute, was steered by radio command to operate motors on the capsule. The motors controlled flap angles on the parachute used to steer the direction of the drift. Altitude sensors suspended below the spacecraft were designed to touch the earth before the spacecraft did, which then ignited two 6,000-pound thrust motors that reduced the speed of the falling capsule from 30 feet a second to less than 10. The capsule landed on a tricycle landing gear and everybody aboard the spacecraft was to live happily ever after, or at the very least they were to live. The capsule, dubbed El Kabong for reasons that are open to speculation, was dropped from an Air Force Reserve C-119 from an altitude of 11,500 feet at Fort Hood on April 21, 1965. The initial test did not have a happy ending; the capsule landed on its side. ...a trip back to the drawing board resulted in an improved turn motor but the second drop, made while Gemini 4 was circling the earth, did not go well either. Damage to the lines that guide the capsule on its way to earth forced Norman to stop the sequence because he could not guide the chute. The third time was the charm. A successful drop and landing was made on July 31, 1965 when the capsule landed within 40 feet of its target on Fort Hood's Antelope Mound tank range. "We've got a winner!" an ebullient Norman cried when the capsule landed upright on its tricycle landing gear. "This is the first successful landing (of a spacecraft) in this country!" he told reporters. "As far as I can tell, everything worked 100 percent."[/i]
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