The Explorers' Club Special: Gemini XI

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Gemini XI
12 September 1966: Gemini XI lifted off from Florida's Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, carrying Command Pilot Pete Conrad & Pilot Dick Gordon aboard a Gemini spacecraft atop a Titan II G.L.V. rocket; they conducted a direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous with their Agena Target Vehicle, docked, & used its engine to set the current record altitude for an Earth-orbiting manned spacecraft.

13-15 September 1966: Gordon conducted an E.V.A., but encountered difficulties similar to Cernan's (Gemini IX-A) & Collins's (Gemini X) & suffered overexertion, & the spacewalk was terminated early; they conducted a passive stabilization experiment with the tethered Agena, rotating to generate a wee bit of artificial gravity; re-entry was computer controlled & they were recovered by the U.S.S. Guam.

Commentary: Dick Gordon's E.V.A. struggles, after Gene Cernan's on Gemini IX-A & Mike Collins's on Gemini X, meant something would have to change before astronauts walked in the Moon. There had been discussion before the mission of sending Gemini XI around the Moon on a large, extremely elliptical orbit of the Earth, but instead Gemini XI rode their Agena booster to a non-lunar mission altitude record that would stand for almost precisely fifty-eight years, until Polaris Dawn (10-15 September 2024). The gravity gradient stabilization didn't work as well as hoped, but further experimentation would be carried out in the Space Shuttle era.

The Wayback Machine Tour of Gemini XI
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCXXXIX: The 55th Anniversary of Gemini XI, Part I
Space Race Song o' the Day
Space Race Song o' the Day
"The Explorers' Club," № DCCCXL: The 55th Anniversary of Gemini XI, Part II

Semper exploro.