March 23, 1965 Major Virgil Grissom and Lt. Cdr. John Young completed the world's first maneuverable manned spacecraft through a near-perfect flight of four hours and 54 minutes.
"Molly Brown", as the craft was named, flew nose forward, backward, upside down -- all on their three-orbit journey. The spacecraft's maneuverability was integral to the space program's development and freedom from total control on earth of basic operations.
From the debriefing:
"Molly Brown" lifted off so smoothly that neither Grissom nor Young felt anything. Their real cues were seeing the mission clock on the instrument panel start running and hearing Cooper announce it from mission control. There was less noise than they had heard on the moving-base simulator in Dallas. When the first-stage engine cut off two and a half minutes later, acceleration plunged from six gravities to one. The second-stage engine ignited, bathing the spacecraft in a flash of orange-yellow light that disconcerted Young for the moment it took him to realize that this was a normal product of fire-in-the-hole staging - that is, second-stage ignition before, instead of after, separation. The launch vehicle had slightly exceeded its predicted thrust, but a warning from Cooper prepared the pilots for the larger than expected pitchdown when the second stage took over the steering. Young, who had never been in space before, was entranced by his view of Earth's horizon and the sense of rapid motion as second-stage thrust built up.
Cape Kennedy NASA officials bragged how the Gemini did things that the Russians had never said they could do with their Vostok and Voshkod craft.
- First time a manned spacecraft had used rocket power for real alterations of its flight path
- First time re-entry into the earth's atmosphere had been controlled (Essential to the Apollo Project)
The nickname he gave the capsule is a reference to the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." After Major Grissom's first ride in space on July 21, 1961 -- and he is the only man to do it twice -- his Liberty Belle 7 capsule sank in the Atlantic.
After a rust-colored cloud of smoke and steam flashed from the tail of the two-stage rocket and the first manned Gemini flight was airborne.
Three minutes later, Maj. L. Gordon Cooper Jr., who almost two years ago made the nation's last manned flight, said from his communicator's position in the control center:"You're on your way, Molly Brown!"
"Yeah, Man," Major Grissom replied.
45 years later: "Yeah Man" still feels like the appropriate response. In an era where astronauts were heroic icons, this larger than life launch set the table for a climactic decade of space travel.
Sure seems like light years from where we are today.
Last summer we remembered the first moon walk in my old CFB "State of the Nation" column (at the bottom): http://sites.google.com/site/thedeskofbrian/state-of-the-nation/state-of-the-nation-from-crazed-fanboy-may-oct-2009/sotn-week-07-13-09
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0323.html#article
See also: "GT-3 Debriefing," pp. 3-2 through -6; "GT-3 Flight Crew Self-Debriefing," NASA Program Gemini working paper No. 5026, 3 June 1965, pp. 2-1, 3-2; "GT-3 Mission Report," pp. 7-11, -20, -21; "Air-to-Ground Voice," p. 3; Grissom and Young, "Molly Brown was OK," p. 41.
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