The Explorers' Club Special

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Gemini 3
23 March 1965: Gemini 3 lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, carrying Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom & Pilot John Young aboard the Gemini spacecraft Molly Brown atop a Titan II G.L.V. rocket; during three orbits, they were the first crew to maneuver their spacecraft in orbit & ate a contraband corned beef sandwich smuggled by Young; they were recovered by the U.S.S. Intrepid.

Wayback Machine: № DCCCXXXIX, "The Space Race—The 55th Anniversary of Gemini 3"

Commentary: The two-man Gemini capsule was affectionately known as the "Gusmobile" because Grissom—the shortest member of the "Mercury Seven," Astronaut Group 1—had played a role in its development & its dimensions well suited his small stature. Project Gemini began development long after the Apollo Program, when it was realized that the limits of the Mercury capsule had been met & that new flight techniques & mission control methods needed to be developed in order for Apollo to achieve its lofty goals. Gemini is very much the forgogtten middle child between the pioneering Mercury & the historic Apollo, but Gemini on its own merits is also when the United States took over the lead of the Space Race from the Soviet Union, achieving new endurance records & perfecting orbital rendezvous & docking.

At the time, March 2020, "The Explorers' Club" was in the midst of the fiftieth anniversaries of the Apollo Moon landings, plus catching up on the fifty-somethingth anniversaries of the pre-Moon landing Apollo missions. We'd missed the fiftieth anniversaries of Project Gemini (2015-2016, when the Great War all but wholly consumed "The Explorers' Club") & I was unwilling to wait for the sixtieth anniversaries tocome around (right now-2026); so, we settled in the fifty-fifth anniverary compromise. I'm looking forward to revisiting the ten Gemini missions over this year & next, & I hope you'll join me.