Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, Gemini Exhibit
Posted by: 
TheBeanTeam
N 45° 30.512 W 122° 39.960
10T E 526090 N 5039498
Gemini Exhibit inside of OMSI.
Waymark Code: WM2R3J
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 12/11/2007
Views: 95
The coordinates are for the entrance to the museum. The exhibit is in the exhibit hall to the right of the ticket desk in the lobby. This exhibit gives children and adults the opportunity to lie down in a scale replica of the capsule.
Text from exhibit plaque;
Gemini Spacecraft Replica
Project Gemini (1964-1966 grew out of the Mercury missions as a preparatory program for Apollo. It’s main objectives were to dock and rendezvous with a sp0ace vehicle and to put an astronaut outside the spacecraft. Built by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, the Gemini space capsule looked completely different than Mercury. The size of the cockpit, however, was only slightly larger…and it held two astronauts! Astronaut John Young described the interior as “sitting in a phone booth that was lying on its side”.
Engineers designed Gemini with rocket thrusters to allow it to change orbits by moving forward, backward , and sideways in its orbital path. Gemini was controlled more like an airplane and required much more of its astronauts than the Mercury spacecraft.
On June 3, 1965, NASA made history when Gemini IV put the first American, Captain Edward White, on a
“walk “in space. During Gemini VIII, Neil Armstrong and David Scott achieved the first docking between a manned spacecraft and an unmanned space vehicle. Gemini also conducted a number of major space science experiments involving astronomy, biology, atmospheric sciences, medicine, radiation effects, and space environmental effects. Project Gemini flew a total of ten manned missions, providing NASA with the technical knowledge and experience necessary to send astronauts to the moon.