Saturday, January 5, 2013

Spacewalks That Never Were: The Gemini Extravehicular Planning Group (1965)

Spacewalks That Never Were: The Gemini Extravehicular Planning Group (1965) - In March 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first human to walk in space. The Soviet Union, eager for propaganda victories, portrayed his spacewalk as a rousing success. NASA took the Soviets at their word, unaware that Leonov had nearly died during his spacewalk. The U.S. space agency abandoned its plans for a gradual build-up in spacewalk complexity and planned elaborate Gemini spacewalks. When it tried to test an Air Force rocket pack in orbit, however, everything went wrong, so NASA scrapped its plan for complex Gemini spacewalks. Beyond Apollo blogger David S. F. Portree describes the Gemini spacewalks that never were.

(Via Wired Top Stories.)

No comments:

Post a Comment