The acclaimed series, The NASA Mission Reports continues!By January of 1966, the United States was finally catching up in the Space Race. 1965 had been a banner year, with one unmanned, and no less than five successful manned flights of the Gemini spacecraft. These included America's first successful rendezvous, and first space walk; but one very important hurdle still remainedâ€"docking. Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott had managed to perform that difficult maneuver, a little over seven weeks earlier, but they had only barely survived their flight, due to malfunctioning hardware. Then tragedy struck, when the prime crew for Gemini IX, Charles Bassett and Elliot See were killed in an air crash. Backup crew, Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan, had to step in, and try to tame what would soon be called the "angry alligator." This was the name they gave to the Agena Target Vehicle when they arrived on station. Agena had already failed on an earlier launch, and when Gemini IX arrived to meet the second target vehicle, yet another malfunction had prohibited the fairing from opening correctly.
Unable to fulfill this part of their mission, they moved ahead with the next step, which was to perform America's second spacewalk. Just a year earlier. astronaut Ed White had been the first to venture out into the void, but his task was to just survive the experience. Gene Cernan had work to do. His goal was to traverse around to the rear of the spacecraft, and strap himself into an untested one man spacecraft, known as the Astronaut Maneuvering Unit. If he could succeed in donning this stylized conglomeration of thrusters and tanks, Cernan would fulfill the Buck Rogers fantasy of generations, and become a rocket backpacked hero. However, it would not be as easy as the planners on the ground had hoped.
Although never really in serious danger, Cernan and Stafford had to deal with a continuous string of minor equipment failures. NASA was now hitting the 90% wall and ironing out the problems in that final 10% was proving to be challenging. Despite this, Stafford and Cernan pushed on through, and brought Gemini a few percent closer to perfection.
Comes with DVD-ROM including 15 HD films of Gemini 9, rare audio recording and hundreds of photographs.
posted 05-07-2026 09:43 PM
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