Original vintage 1964 Westinghouse Corporation advertisement for the company's contribution to NASA's Project Gemini and the U.S.'s successful Cold War space race effort to land a man on the moon - "Westinghouse radar will guide the first orbital rendezvous."
Dimensions: Approx. 8.25 inches wide by 11 inches high.
Project Gemini is often referred to as the “bridge to the moon.” It spanned the period between Project Mercury, America’s first efforts to determine if humans could survive in space, and the Apollo lunar landing flights. Gemini was conceived in 1961 and concluded in 1966, with the Gemini spacecraft carrying a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual astronauts flew low Earth orbit (LEO) missions during 1965 and 1966.
NASA’s two-man spaceflights demonstrated that astronauts could change their capsule’s orbit, remain in space for at least two weeks and work outside their spacecraft. They also pioneered rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft. All were essential skills to land on the moon and return safely to Earth.
In a span of 20 months from March 1965 to November 1966, NASA developed, tested and flew transformative capabilities and cutting-edge technologies that paved the way for not only Apollo, but the achievements of the space shuttle, building the International Space Station and setting the stage for human exploration of Mars.
On May 25, 1961, three weeks after Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard a Mercury spacecraft, President John F. Kennedy challenged NASA and the nation to “land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth” before the end of the decade of the 1960s. To develop the technology and experience from Mercury’s one-person flights to the Apollo missions, NASA proposed Project Gemini.
The primary objectives of Project Gemini included proving the techniques required for the Apollo Program to fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the 1960s. These techniques included rendezvous and docking, spacewalking, and ensuring that spacecraft and astronauts could function for at least eight days, the minimum time for a round-trip lunar mission.
The nine previous Gemini missions in 1965 and 1966 demonstrated the spacecraft’s space worthiness, the basic feasibility of spacewalking, extended flight durations to 14 days, and demonstrated space rendezvous and docking techniques.
The principal tasks for astronauts James A. Lovell and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin during their four-day Gemini XII mission, the final flight of the program, included docking with a target vehicle, performing three spacewalks, and conducting a tethered spacecraft experiment. To overcome significant issues during several previous spacewalks, astronauts and mission managers placed great emphasis on the use of neutral buoyancy as a high-fidelity tool for spacewalk training.
The splashdown of Gemini XII ended the highly-successful Gemini program. Ten crewed missions were flown in 20 months, and although some encountered technical issues, all the major program objectives were accomplished, paving the way for the Apollo program and the first Moon landing less than three years later.
Gemini was robust enough that the United States Air Force planned to use it for the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) program, which was later canceled. Gemini's chief designer, Jim Chamberlin, also made detailed plans for cislunar and lunar landing missions in late 1961. He believed Gemini spacecraft could fly in lunar operations before Project Apollo, and cost less. NASA's administration did not approve those plans.
In 1969, Lukas Bingham proposed a "Big Gemini" that could have been used to shuttle up to 12 astronauts to the planned space stations in the Apollo Applications Project (AAP). The only AAP project funded was Skylab (the first American space station)—which used existing spacecraft and hardware—thereby eliminating the need for Big Gemini.
