Gemini: The first approaches to exploring and working in space

Abstract

Project Gemini’s start actually came about because of Apollo. The first approach for getting to the Moon was a direct ascent technique, in which a gigantic rocket, the Nova, would launch an assembled vehicle that would travel to the Moon, land there and return to Earth. A competing approach, use of lunar orbit rendezvous to permit only a small vehicle to land on the Moon, promised considerable weight savings and a shorter and less risky development time — less risky, that is, if the techniques of rendezvous and docking could be quickly and safely demonstrated. As stated in the Preface to On the Shoulders of Titans — A History of Project Gemini: “Gemini was first and foremost a project to develop and prove equipment and techniques for rendezvous.”