Word: conrade
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Apollo Simulation. Having taught so much with its failure, Gemini was able to demonstrate even more with its many successes. Within 94 minutes after their launch from Cape Kennedy, while they were still on their first orbit, Conrad and Gordon rendezvoused and docked with an Agena target vehicle that had been blasted into orbit only a few hours earlier. It was the first successful space link-up accomplished so soon after launch, and it simulated a vital step in the Apollo moon mission. After exploring the surface of the moon, Apollo astronauts will have to blast off in their little...
...fuel in a 25-second burn, the engine increased the Gemini-Agena's speed by 620 m.p.h. and shoved it into an orbit with an apogee of 850 miles-far exceeding Gemini 10's record height of 476 miles. As his ship approached maximum altitude, Conrad could not contain his excitement. "It's fantastic," he radioed to controllers at Carnarvon, Australia. "You wouldn't believe it. I've got India in the left window, Borneo under our nose, and you're right at the right window. The world is round...
Skip Rope Outside. By managing to secure the Dacron tether between the Agena and Gemini 11 before abandoning his space walk, Gordon had set the stage for the most spectacular of Gemini's maneuvers. On the third day of the flight, Conrad undocked Gemini and used his thrusters to back slowly away from the Agena until the 100-ft. rope was taut between them. As soon as the thrusters were shut off, however, both ships began to gyrate erratically, the rope oscillating between them. "It's like the Agena and I have got a skip rope between...
...provided a bonus: a small centrifugal force that acted like a weak gravitational pull, causing objects to drift toward and finally "fall" on the rear wall of Gemini's cabin. It was the first artificial gravity created during a manned orbital flight. After three hours of tethered orbiting, Conrad flipped a switch that jettisoned Gemini's docking bar, freeing the spacecraft from the connecting rope. As Gemini drifted away, the tether-now attached only to the Agena-slowly wrapped itself around the target vehicle like a python around its prey...
...Chimp Mode" Reentry. Earlier, the astronauts had docked a record four times, but they had used their fuel so efficiently that they had enough left to make a final and unscheduled rendezvous with the Agena. At reentry, Conrad and Gordon were relieved of their duties by a new, automatic re-entry system that the astronauts sarcastically call "the chimp mode." Controlled by Gemini's onboard computer, it fired the spacecraft's thrusters at the proper time to correct its attitude and direction. Its value was evident. For it guided the relaxed astronauts to a splashdown closer...