The Gemini Program was intended to be an intermediate step between Mercury and Apollo. The Gemini spacecraft carried two astronauts and it was the first spacecraft to use a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity.

Gemini astronauts performed the first orbital rendezvous and docking as well as the first American spacewalk. These abilities would be required if a manned mission to the Moon was to become a possibility. A land landing using Gemini was scheduled, but that mission was cancelled in 1964.

By the time the Gemini Program ended in 1966 the Americans were catching up with or even surpassing the Russians in the space race.

Main Objectives

• Spend up to two weeks in orbit
• Rendezvous and dock with another spacecraft
• Perfect Earth re-entry and landing

Mission Assignments

• Gemini 3 “Molly Brown”
  March 23, 1965
  Virgil “Gus” Grissom (CP), John Young (P)

• Gemini 4
  June 3-7, 1965
  James McDivitt (CP), Edward White (P)

• Gemini 5
  August 21-29, 1965
  L. Gordon Cooper (CP), Charles “Pete” Conrad (P)

• Gemini 7
  December 4-18, 1965
  Frank Borman (CP), James Lovell (P)

• Gemini 6A
  December 15-16, 1965
  Walter Schirra (CP), Thomas Stafford (P)

• Gemini 8
  March 16, 1966
  Neil Armstrong (CP), David Scott (P)

• Gemini 9A
  June 3-6, 1966
  Thomas Stafford (CP), Eugene Cernan (P)
  Reassigned after the deaths of Elliot See and Charles Bassett

• Gemini 10
  July 18-21, 1966
  John Young (CP), Michael Collins (P)

• Gemini 11
  September 12-15, 1966
  Charles “Pete” Conrad (CP), Richard Gordon (P)

• Gemini 12
  November 11-15, 1966
  James Lovell (CP), Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (P)