Mercury and Gemini

Even before President Kennedy made his challenge, NASA had launched Project Mercury. The project took the first American, Alan Shepard, into space on May 5, 1961, but he did not orbit Earth. After a second suborbital flight in 1961 by U. S. astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom, the first orbital flight by a U. S. astronaut was made by John Glenn on February 20, 1962. Three more Mercury flights followed, testing various aspects of spaceflight and increased flight time.

NASA’s next program was Project Gemini, designed to address some of the challenges faced in taking people to the Moon. NASA had chosen an option that would involve a rendezvous, or steering two spacecraft near each other. It would also require docking, which meant join­ing the two spacecraft together. None of this had been done before, and the steer­ing and navigation techniques needed to perform the tasks had never been tested.

In 1965 and 1966, ten manned Gemini missions tested several new space techniques. Gemini 3 had the first on-board computer used by astronauts. Ed White became the first American to “walk” in space when he left the safety of Gemini 4 and floated in space attached by two cords. Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 achieved the first rendezvous when they met up in December 1965. The astronauts on Gemini 7 stayed in space for two weeks, showing that it was possible for people to survive long enough to travel to the Moon and back. On March 16, 1966, Gemini 8 performed the first docking of two space vehicles in orbit. The docking was performed by Neil Armstrong, who would be the com­mander of Apollo 11. All the Gemini flights contributed vital knowledge and experience to Project Apollo.