Word: geminis
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...majestic Titan II rocket lifted off precisely on schedule, hurling Gemini 7 toward a new chapter in space exploration. Five minutes after Lieut. Colonel Frank Borman and Commander James Lovell Jr. took off, a ground controller exclaimed: "You're right down the slot!" Command Pilot Borman radioed back: "That's the best thing I've heard...
...better news yet. If all goes well, by the time Borman and Lovell splash down on Dec. 18, they will have been in the air for as long as the longest estimated Apollo mission to the moon will take. They will have flown the heaviest (more than four tons) Gemini capsule yet, and undergone the most extensive in-flight medical tests. (Borman had two spots shaved on his head and depilatory rubbed in to accommodate electroencephalograph sensors with which his brain waves were to be monitored.) The Gemini 7 crew will be the first to fly in their long underwear...
...launch. Rain threatened to scrub the mission until 31 hours before blastoff. A minor pressure loss in a fuel cell soon after the capsule achieved orbit was quickly remedied by switching pressure from the breathing oxygen tank to the fuel-cell oxygen tank. And in the first minutes of Gemini 7's flight, Borman and Lovell, both 37 and both making their first space journeys, succeeded in a drill that had never worked before. Guided by their own vision, they maneuvered their capsule to fly in formation with the detached second phase of the booster...
Titanium and stainless steel rank high among the glamour metals of modern technology. Because they retain their great strength even when heated to high temperatures, they have countless uses in such space-age products as Gemini capsules and jet engines. They would have countless other applications were it not for one exasperating characteristic: they cannot be used for moving parts that rub against other hunks of titanium or stainless steel. When they are, the pieces simply stick together...
Aware of the risks, NASA has insisted that Astronaut Bassett remain attached to Gemini 9 by a 200-ft. nylon tether. If both Bassett and AMU perform satisfactorily, however, the astronaut who leaves Gemini 12 in an AMU may well be allowed to sever his last connection with the mother ship and strike out into empty space...