Page 22 - Gemini Program News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The gemini program was specifically to show that we could do a rendezvous and dock. >> in order to get to the moon, you had to have a capability of two weeks in space. you had to be able to rendezvous. you had to be able to -- do e.v.a., get outside the spacecraft in a space suit, and you had to have a guided re-entry. we practiced all of those missions in gemini. so gemini was an extremely important part of the lunar program. >> on june 3rd, 1965, on gemini iv, astronaut edward white became the first american to perform an e.v.a. -- extravehicular activity. or spacewalk. >> i feel like $1 mil...

The gemini program was specifically to show that we could do a rendezvous and dock. >> in order to get to the moon, you had to have a capability of two weeks in space. you had to be able to rendezvous. you had to be able to -- do e.v.a., get outside the spacecraft in a space suit, and you had to have a guided re-entry. we practiced all of those missions in gemini. so gemini was an extremely important part of the lunar program. >> on june 3rd, 1965, on gemini iv, astronaut edward white became the first american to perform an e.v.a. -- extravehicular activity. or spacewalk. >> i feel like $1 mil...

They are going to place the enterprise and told us a little bit about how it's going to go down. we have that story coming up on "happening now," a preview, if you will of what the public will actually get to see. jon: getting a little crowded on the flight deck there at the enterprise. jenna: they were sitting in a barge on the enterprise when we were there. you can imagine how big this thing is and what an immense feat it will be to lift it right up and put it on the enterprise deck. jon: it's history repeating itself in a sense. i'm old enough to remember when the intrepid was an active dut...

Way to orbit. when he got there, he had more problems. he had a failed thruster that forced him to fly manually and you may know the story about his faulty heat shield. we thought he was going to burn up on re-entry. he had a very, very tense ride back to earth. >> wow. talk to me about the mood of the country. i know you were a young boy at the time but was it a nation coming together, being inspired by watching these astronauts like john glenn? >> everything stopped when john glenn or alan shepard, all the mercury astronauts took their flights, everything stopped in my classroom, the teacher...

Astronauts. we knew that the russians had cosmonauts that would follow like the dog. i think we expected that the mercury program would set the pace and would lead toward the apollo program but we were smart enough to fill the gap with the gemini program and that gave me through being in the right place at the right time an opportunity to fly on gemini 12. so i think, we, sort of lagged behind but it was gemini 10, 11 and 12 that caught up. but then of course we were set behind again he about the apollo 1 fire that took my good friend ed white and we celebrate now with the three tragedies of a...