Why were the Gemini missions important?

Answer 1

The Mercury missions proved that a human could go into space. They also proved that humans could eat and sleep in space. In a nutshell, the purpose of the Gemini missions was to perform all the tasks necessary to fly and land on the moon and return them safely back to earth. The exact purpose of Gemini is best understood by a brief runthrough of the 10 Gemini missions.

Gemini 3 - Gus Grissom and John Young only flew 3 orbits, but they managed to prove that the Gemini spacecraft could support 2 men in space. They also burned their thrusters to change orbit and orbital plane, which cleared the way for rendezvous in space.

Gemini 4 - Jim McDivitt and Ed White flew for 4 days in space, which more than doubled the 24 hour record held by a United States astronaut. Another goal of Gemini 4 was to see if humans could work outside of their spacecraft. They did this by taking spacewalks (otherwise knows ans Extra Vehicular Activity or EVA.) Ed White performed the first EVA by a US astronaut. Alexi Leonov became the first human to lave his spacecraft 6 weeks earlier.

Gemini 5 - Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad doubled the endurance record held by the Gemini 4 crew. This was important because the shortest trip to the moon and back would take 8 days. Gemini 5 proved that humans could survive in space for 8 days.

Gemini 7 - Frank Borman and Jim Lovell pushed the US space endurance record to 14 days, a record that lasted about 7 years. Yes, Gemini 7 launched before Gemini 6, which was manned by Walter Schirra and Tom Stafford. Gemini 6 was originally supposed to dock with an unmanned Agena spacecraft, but the Agena failed to reach orbit. Since it would take about 6 months to finish building the next Agena, it was decided that since Gemini 7 would be in space for 14 days, why not use it as a rendezvous target for Gemini 6? The plan worked. Gemini 6 performed the first rendezvous with Gemini 7 on December 15, 1966. Rendezvous was important because men returning from the moon would have to rendezvous and dock with the mothership in lunar orbit before returning back to earth.

Gemini 8 - Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott performed the first docking in space. Shortly after docking, the Gemini spacecraft began tumbling out of control. When Armstrong separated from the unmanned Agena, as per their training, the Gemini began spinning even faster, reaching a roll rate of one revolution per second. They were on the verge of blacking out when Armstrong finally stopped the roll and regained control of the spacecraft.

Gemini 9 - Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan were to dock with an Agena, but the docking shroud did not disconnect from the Agena. The astronauts said the shroud made the Agena look like an "Angry Alligator". Stafford and Cernan used the Agena as a rendezvous target instead, changing orbit several times. After separating from the Agena for 50 miles or more, they performed the necessary maneuvers to rendezvous with the Agena again and again. The next day, Cernan was to leave the spacecraft and go to the back of the Gemini vehicle and put on a backpack and fly around the Gemini untethered. Cernan worked so hard trying to get the backpack on that his visor fogged over. His heartrate peaked at around 185bpm. Cernan returned to the spacecraft without ever using the backpack. The first untethered EVA would not occur until 18 years later when Bruce McCandless flew more than 100 feet from the Space Shuttle.

Gemini 10 - John Young and Michael Collins docked successfully with their Agena target. They used their own Agena to boost them up to where they could rendezvous with the Gemini 8 Agena. Once there, Collins left the spacecraft to retrieve an experiment that Scott could not because of the aborted Gemini 8 mission. Collins's visor also fogged up due to the effort he was using to get to the Gemini 8 Agena. He managed to successfully retrieve the experiment, but lost his camera when he was trying to get back into his spacecraft. Gemini 10 performed the first double docking in space.

Gemini 11 - Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon docked successfully with their Agena. Gordon left the spacecraft and crawled over to where the 2 vehicles were docked. Once there, he attached a tether from the Agena to his Gemini spacecraft. After returning to his spacecraft, Conrad fired the Agena engine to boost their spacecraft to a record altitude of more than 800 miles. Once there, Conrad undocked from the Agena. The 2 vehicles remained tied by the tether Gordon hooked up. The purpose of the experiment was to see if an artificial gravity could be achieved by tethering 2 spacecrafts and slowly spinning them around each other. They found out they were able to create a very small amount of gravity, but the gravity was so small as to be totally useless in space travel.

Gemini 12 - Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin used his love for Scuba diving to train for his EVA. After goinng over his tasks in a huge water tank, Aldrin was able to figure out what restraints were needed and where they would best be used. As a result of his training, Aldrin performed the first totally successful working EVA.