Gemini Spacecraft (1:72 scale)
- Following Project Mercury, Gemini was NASA’s second human spaceflight program. Ahead of the first landings on the Moon under the Apollo program, Gemini was designed to develop techniques that would be indispensable for future manned spaceflight. Thus, spacewalks, orbital maneuvers, & rendezvous & docking procedures were tested in a total of ten flights conducted in 1965-66. These ten manned Gemini flights all blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop Titan II boosters. The name Gemini was chosen because the crewmen would be seated abreast in their spacecraft, with the Latin word gemini meaning “side by side”. Mc Donnell Aircraft was selected in 1961 to build the Gemini capsule, which measured 5.79m long & 3.05m in diameter. The 3, 851kg module first flew with a crew on 23 March 1965, with the world’s first onboard computer onboard.