#gemini spacecraft

[thegikitiki]

Manned Space Flight is a Proven Capability...

McDonnell Aircraft, Mercury & Gemini Capsules, 1962

[chernobog13]

I was actually old enough to enter this contest when it appeared. However, I wasn't quite old enough to understand all the fine print. It was one of my uncles who talked me out of entering.

The thing was, this full-size Gemini mock-up from McDonald Douglas wasn't yours if you won the contest; you had to donate it to a museum or park. As my uncle pointed out, if I won the closest museum that might've accepted the Gemini capsule was probably in New York City, at least an hour away from my house by car or train.

I thought this was a big con job. What kid wouldn't want their own space capsule at home? And who would want to donate it to a museum, where you'd never get to play with it?

Man, my parents could've filled the thing with snacks and locked me inside, and I wouldn't have bothered them all summer long!

Some kid in Portland, OR named Robbie Alan Hanshew won the thing, and donated it to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I bet he never even got to sit in it.

Still, it's probably just as well I never entered the contest or won. Me sainted mum would'nt have let me keep the other part of the prize: every single Revell model kit (approximately 200 at the time). She thought model kits were a waste of time when I should be outside playing, or mowing the lawn, or weeding the garden, or any other of the dozens of chores she had lined up to fill my every waking moment when I wasn't in school.

She probably thought I was gonna get high off the model glue, too.

[lonestarflight]

Cutaway of the Gemini Spacecraft.

[crownedstoat]

Gemini 9A splashdown, Gene Cernan and Thomas Stafford, June 6, 1966 by Dan Beaumont Space Museum Via Flickr: WIKIPEDIA: Reentry: Gemini 9 splashes down at 9:00 A.M., June 6, 1966. The day of the EVA was also their last in space. On their 45th revolution of the Earth, the crewmen fired the retrofire rockets that slowed them down so that they would reenter. This time the computer worked perfectly, meaning they landed only 700 meters from the planned landing site and were close enough to see the prime recovery ship, USS Wasp. The splashdown happened closer to the recovery ship than any other manned spacecraft.[citation needed] After the mission it was decided to set up a Mission Review committee to make sure that the objectives planned for each mission were realistic and that they had a direct benefit for Apollo. The Gemini 9A mission was supported by the following U.S. Department of Defense resources: 11,301 personnel, 92 aircraft and 15 ships. Mission info: Mission statistics Mission nameGemini 9A Spacecraft nameGemini 9 Spacecraft mass3,750 kilograms (8,300 lb) Crew size2 Call signGemini 9 Launch vehicleTitan II #62-12564 Launch padLC-19 (Cape Kennedy AFS) Launch dateJune 3, 1966, 13:39:33 UTC LandingJune 6, 1966, 14:00:23 UTC 27°52′N 75°0.4′W Mission duration3d/00:20:50 Number of orbits47. 4x5 TRANSPARENCY NASA PHOTO, 66-HC-350, US GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION, ACQUISITION: NASA HEADQUATERS, Washington D.C., July 5, 1976. SCAN AND REMASTERED by Dan Beaumont

[spaceexp]

Fish-eye view of the controls of the Gemini spacecraft

[chernobog13]

Revell ad from various comics in late 1966/early 1967.

I really wanted to enter this contest as a kid, but I never had a Revell model boxtop, or “reasonable facsimile,” tp send in.  I can guarantee you, had I won, that puppy was not going to be donated to any hometown museum - it was going to live in my house so I could play in it!

[from-the-earth-to-the-moon13]

When Gemini Met Saturn - 1963 concept