Project Gemini was
NASA's second
human spaceflight program. It was a
United States space program started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. Project Gemini was conducted between projects
Mercury and
Apollo. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten crews flew
low Earth orbit (LEO) missions between 1965 and 1966. It put the United States in the lead during the
Cold War
Space Race with the
Soviet Union.
Its objective was to develop space travel techniques to support Apollo's mission to
land astronauts on the Moon. Gemini achieved missions long enough for a trip to the
Moon and back, perfected working outside the spacecraft with
extra-vehicular activity (EVA), and pioneered the
orbital maneuvers necessary to achieve
space rendezvous and
docking. With these new techniques proven in Gemini, Apollo could pursue its prime mission without doing these fundamental exploratory operations.
The astronaut corps that supported Project Gemini included the "
Mercury Seven", "
The New Nine", and the
1963 astronaut class. During the program, three astronauts died in air crashes during training, including the prime crew for Gemini 9. This mission was performed by the backup crew, the only time that had happened in NASA's history to that date.
Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian
cosmonaut,
Air Force
major general, writer, and artist.
On March 18, 1965, he became the first human to conduct
extravehicular activity (EVA), exiting the capsule during the
Voskhod 2 mission for a 12-minute spacewalk. During the spacewalk, he encountered severe difficulties due to the design of his spacesuit.
Leonov had been tapped to be a commander for the
Soviet crewed lunar programs, and would've commanded the first crewed
Soyuz 7K-L1
Zond mission if it were ever cleared to proceed. He was selected as commander of
Soyuz 11, the second planned (and first successful) mission to the
Salyut 1 space station, but the entire crew was swapped out when crewmate
Valeri Kubasov was suspected of contracting
tuberculosis. This saved him from dying when Soyuz 11 de-pressurized during re-entry, killing the cosmonauts on-board.
Leonov was then selected as commander of Soyuz 19, the Soviet side of the
Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, again with Kubasov. They would be joined by
Apollo astronauts
Tom Stafford,
Vance Brand, and
Deke Slayton, on the mission in July 1975.
Leonov would serve as "Chief Cosmonaut" from 1976 through 1982, and retired from the
Soviet space program in 1991. He would spend time in the private sector in post-Soviet
Russia, most notably at
Alfa-Bank, until he retired for good in 2001. He has written several books about his space experience, including a joint biography with American astronaut
David Scott in 2006.
