Word: geminis
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...Administration had finally decided to orbit a fully equipped, $1.5 billion manned space laboratory by late 1968 (see SCIENCE). He went out of his way to soothe Soviet suspicion of such militarily useful hardware, promised to invite a "very high-level" Russian scientist to witness the launching of Gemini 6 in October. Said Johnson: "Our American dream for outer space is a dream of peace and a dream of friendly cooperation among all of the nations of the earth. We believe the heavens belong to the people of every country...
Dogged by minor mishaps, determined to go the full route, the men of Gemini 5 aimed for eight days in orbit -and made it. Early this week Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad maneuvered their spacecraft back into the earth's atmosphere over California. Minutes later, at precisely 8:55:58 a.m. (EDT) on Sunday, they splashed down in the Atlantic about 90 miles short of target, soon were picked up by helicopter and lifted to the carrier Lake Champlain. Safe and smiling, they seemed in perfect shape...
...time that it would take to journey to the moon and back. During 190½ hours in orbit, they made 120 revolutions around the earth, seeing 120 sunrises and sunsets, and traveled 3,300,000 miles. More important than those records, which would surely be broken by the Gemini 7 flight early next year, were the significant achievements of the voyage. Said Flight Director Chris Kraft: "We have learned a great deal more than we ever expected...
...gear stood up well, and much of it did better than anticipated, though malfunctions gave the flight a touch-and-go aura all the way. Two rocket thrusters jammed; the fuel-cell system was a constant problem. But the spacemen were pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of other equipment. Gemini's ultra-high-frequency radio transmitter, for example, showed remarkable clarity. Said Chris Kraft: "We're up there to learn systems performance and how to handle problems-and we're getting a good workout...
Static from Moscow. They were, indeed. The astronauts carried out 17 experiments-ten more than Gemini 4. Five of them involved photography. Clicking away with a modified Hasselblad 70-mm. reflex camera and a 35-mm. camera, Cooper and Conrad photographed the moon, the eye of Hurricane Doreen east of Hawaii, and the zodiacal light above the horizon just after twilight and just before dawn-gaining invaluable information for meteorologists and astronomers. They sighted and photographed the firings of two Minutemen missiles, launched to coincide with Gemini's passover. They took infra-red measurements of volcanoes, land masses...