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NASA scientists continue to glow over Gemini 10's space success, but key questions remain. Almost continuous debriefing of Astronauts John Young and Mike Collins has pinpointed but not solved the two major "gliches"-fuel shortage and eye watering-that almost snarled the threeday, record-setting flight...
Brute-Force Buttonhook. The fuel problem arose during Gemini 10's tricky fourth-orbit rendezvous with Agena 10. To determine the final thrust required for the interception, Young and Collins used data from the on-board radar, inertial guidance and computer system. In some as yet unknown way, the system produced a figure nearly 7 ft. per sec. greater than the figure radioed up from ground control. When Collins' own slide-rule tabulation agreed with the spacecraft guidance system, Command Pilot Young chose to go with the double-checked on-board answer...
Spectacular Views. Engineers remain stumped over what pungent substance irritated the crew's eyes during Collins' first EVA (extra vehicular activity). One new suggestion is that urine somehow invaded the breathing lines, but the Gemini 10 spacemen quickly vetoed that theory, insisting that the eye-swelling fumes were in no way similar to urine. One guess now is that the special antifog mist wiped on both space-suit visors prior to the EVA reacted chemically with particles of lithium hydroxide (used to purify the astronauts' breathing system...
Ultraviolet Photography. While they waited to catch up, Young and Collins turned to their scheduled EVA (extravehicular activity). After securing their helmet face plates, they switched to their space-suit oxygen systems, and depressurized Gemini's cabin. Then Astronaut Collins swung open his hatch and stood up, sticking out into space from his waist...
Using a camera loaded with ultraviolet-sensitive film, he shot spectrograms of several stars. Because ultraviolet is largely absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, the spectrograms could give astronomers a good look at the stars' composition and behavior and provide added information about their origin. As Gemini-Agena passed into daylight, Collins mounted a plate marked with colored patches of red, yellow, blue and grey, shot a series of test pictures that should help determine how the conditions of space affect color photography...