Word: gemini
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...short range, where the thrusts are small, there is little time for orbital mechanics to take hold, and Schirra was able to largely ignore their strange effects and allow his pilot's instincts to take over. After blipping his thrusters to edge closer to Gemini 7, he fired short reverse blasts to come to a stop, since there is no friction in space to slow him down. Back and forth, up and down, he maneuvered with a precision that brought expressions of admiration from Borman and from ground control in Houston, which noted that at rendezvous he had used...
Calm & Effective. Perhaps. But there was little doubt last week that much of the credit for the successful rendezvous belonged to casual Wally Schirra, who, at 42, is the oldest astronaut flying. It was his cool and seasoned performance during the abortive Sunday launch of Gemini 6 that made the midweek triumph possible. Had he panicked and pulled the Dring ("chicken switch") that would have ejected him and Copilot Stafford from the Gemini capsule, the mission could probably not have been sent aloft on time. His superb piloting of the capsule, perfected in long hours of practice in the Houston...
...Made It. In their less glamorous, but physically more demanding roles aboard Gemini 7, Frank Borman and James Lovell demonstrated a neat combination of endurance, stoicism and humor that was vital to their mission's success. Like Schirra, Borman, 37, was air-oriented from youth, building model airplanes and later selling newspapers to pay for flying lessons. He ranked eighth in his graduating class at West Point before he joined the Air Force. Then an eardrum broken during a practice dive-bombing run made him doubt that he would ever fly again. He was delighted when recovery proved...
...jumping up and down an hour later. Marilyn Lovell, expecting her fourth child soon, was also in high spirits. "I'm just stopping by on my way to the hospital," she joked. Jo Schirra tried to take the excitement in stride, sent her two children to school after Gemini 6's blastoff. But the following morning, when Schirra stepped aboard the Wasp, Jo Schirra admitted that she had found "every bit" of the mission exciting. The flawless recovery, she said, was "even more than I expected...
Public Sensors. Though Gemini 7 Astronauts Borman and Lovell were the only humans in space during most of the 14-day flight, their mission, which was primarily medical, was also very public. Nearly all of their important body functions-from thinking to urinating-were monitored through sensors attached to their bodies, recorded on instruments in the spacecraft, or relayed to Houston where batteries of doctors pored over telemetered data. Each man was required to bag and date his own solid and liquid wastes, to be turned over to doctors at flight's end. For want of a more descriptive...