Word: orbiteer
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Johnson's only real news was that the 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...
Behind them was by far the longest space flight made by anyone. They accomplished their prime mission-proving that man can live and work in space for the amount of 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...
...days before doctors could tell whether "Gordo" Cooper and "Pete" Conrad suffered any really bad effects from the prolonged weightlessness and confinement in their spaceship, they appeared to have nothing worse than stiff joints, heavy beards and nagging itches. Cooper apparently came through better than on his first, 22-orbit flight two years ago; his heartbeat averaged 89 then, about 70 this time...
CapCom: O.K. We will look at this thing for another orbit...