Abstract
“That old ticker is really
ticking away now,
I’ll tell you.”
Gus Grissom, just prior
to retrofire on Gemini 3
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Notes
- 1.
A time hack is military term which means to take note of the current time, with the ability to set the watch to a specific time, stopping it, then restarting it the instant the time matches the displayed time on a reference time piece, in this case the update from the ground station.
- 2.
The lift-to-drag ratio is a measure of the aerodynamic efficiency of a vehicle and is essentially a ‘tug of war’ between the forces of flight. In space, only mass (gravity) and thrust (velocity) apply, but within the atmosphere aerodynamic forces apply to the vehicle as well. The Lift is the force directed perpendicular to the direction of motion through the air and is created by differences in air pressure. Drag is the force directed along the flight path opposite to the direction of motion and is caused by friction through the air as well as differences in air pressure. Weight or Mass is the force of gravity acting in a downward direction – towards the center of the Earth. Thrust is the force produced by the engines that propel a vehicle in the direction of motion.
- 3.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, the saying ‘Black Dog’ relates to a feeling of depression or melancholy, Perhaps, in this snippet of a transmission which the air-to-ground does not capture in its entirety, Young was expressing regret at leaving orbit and coming home.
References
Gemini! Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, Macmillan, 1968, p. 112.
Pilot Report, Astronaut’s Flight Report, March 31, dated 1966 (but probably 1965), M-913-65-03.
Command Pilot Report, Astronaut’s Flight Report, March 31, dated 1966 (but probably 1965), M-913-65-03.
Manned Space Flight Experiments Symposium, Gemini Missions III and IV, held at the Auditorium of the Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., October 18-19, 1965, NASA, Experiment T-1, Re-entry Communications on Gemini III, pp. 81-103.
Press Breifing, Charles W. Mathews, NASA New Release MSC, 65-65 May 3, 1965, p. 10.
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Shayler, D.J. (2018). Got your seat belts hooked?. In: Gemini Flies!. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68142-9_8
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