Word: missions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Astronauts Borman and Lovell, who had been flying most of their mission in underwear, were now in their space suits. If the two spacecraft inadvertently bumped, their skins might rupture and the astronauts would need protection against decompression of the cabin. Meanwhile, Schirra made another posigrade burn to lift his ship into a higher orbit that would lead to its meeting with Gemini...
...miles apart while their tired crews slept. Next morning, an hour before he fired retrorockets for Gemini 6's trip back to earth, the irrepressible Schirra solemnly reported sighting an unidentified satellite in a low trajectory in polar orbit. It was trying to contact him, he told Mission Control in Houston. Then, before Chris Kraft & Co. had time to recover, he pulled out a harmonica and played Jingle Bells...
...working both controls simultaneously, Schirra was able to make his spacecraft respond as smoothly as a trained seal. Stafford, meanwhile, was busy with a circular slide rule and a heavily crosshatched plotting chart in his lap, checking the on-board computer's data and relaying information to Mission Control...
...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 docking simulator, and his nearly on-target splashdown near the carrier Wasp were reminiscent of his first space flight. In 1962 Schirra flew a near-perfect mission...
...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...