The Explorers' Club Special

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Gemini IV
3-7 June 1965: Gemini IV lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, carrying Command Pilot Jim McDivitt & Pilot Ed White aboard a Gemini spacecraft atop a Titan II G.L.V. rocket; White became the first American to conduct an extravehicular activity (E.V.A., or "spacewalk"); after a N.A.S.A. record four days in orbit, they landed in the Atlantic & were recovered by the U.S.S. Wasp.

Wayback Machine: № DCCLIII, "The Space Race—The 55th Anniversary of Gemini IV"
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day

Commentary: The headlines about Gemini IV are all about Ed White's first American E.V.A. (& second overall spacewalk, almost twice as long as Alexei Leonov's first human spacewalk in March 1965), & that is a laudable achievement, but lost in the shuffle is the new American endurance record set. Gemini IV more than quadrupled the duration of the previous longest American spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7, 1963), & exceeded the duration of the previous seven American missions combined (the six Mercury flights & Gemini 3). Gemini IV's attempt to rendezvous with its own Titan rocket stage failed because N.A.S.A., neither the astronuats in the unnamed Gemini capsule nor the mission controllers in Houston, had yet grasped the counterintuitive nature of orbital mechanics. Obrital rendezvous would be achieved at the end of 1965 when Gemini VI-A met up with Gemini VII; docking would be achieved by Gemini VIII early in 1966.

At the time, June 2020, I'd established the three-episode format for Apollo missions, but all the previous Mercury & Gemini missions had lasted one day or less. If I had it to do over again, I would dedicate two episodes to Gemini IV (one on 3 June, the other on 7 June), as I would with the remaining longer Gemini missions. The American space program learned in real time as it conducted Project Gemini; I learned as I blogged about Project Gemini fifty-five years later.

Semper exploro.