Word: geminis
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...they had given a party of businessmen a tour of the Cape, Houston's Manned Space Center and some of the country's other space facilities. Impressed by their guests' enthusiasm, they had now invited 25 college editors to watch James Borman and Frank Lovell blast off in the Gemini...
Schirra, theoretically just nine days away from the launching of his own Gemini 6, was by far the most relaxed of the group. He was the only one without a certain wild-eyed look that seems to reflect the two-sided nature of the astronaut's world--half survival training in the desert and half telling college editors at cocktail parties what it's like to have been in space...
Schirra would have to pilot Gemini 6 into a rendezvous with Borman and Lovell. How hard would it be, he was asked? If Ranger 7 could find a tiny area on the moon accurately, would it be harder to rendezvous with a much-nearer satellite...
Quick Change. That experience may seem tame compared with the planned rendezvous with Gemini 6, which had been scheduled to go up Oct. 25. Gemini 6, programmed to hook up with an unmanned vehicle, was scrubbed after the latter blew up. The cancellation allowed Gemini 7 to be moved up from its scheduled launch in late December, and gave National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials the opportunity to launch 6 and 7 nine days apart in an attempt to achieve the first meeting of manned craft in space. The challenge was to compress the normal launch preparation time so that...
...normal preparation cycle is 60 days. There was a chance to reduce this to nine days because Gemini 6 had been kept in a high state of readiness. One of the big questions was whether Launch Complex 19-the only pad at Cape Kennedy capable of handling the Gemini-would be so damaged by Gemini 7's blast-off that Gemini 6 could not be emplaced soon enough. But damage to the launch site was "minimal." Crews began moving the Gemini 6 booster from its hangar to the launch pad 45 minutes after Gemini 7 lifted off. This week...