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After the success of Mercury the Gemini Program was showing the Gemini Program was introduced to the public on January 3, 1962. At this time Apollo had already been called into life. To the public it was not as interesting as Mercury or Apollo since it was not real pioneering anymore. It was a mere preparation for the Apollo program. The Gemini Program had three main objectives.
The first was to accomplish space fights of two weeks in duration. The lunar missions would later take the same time. So NASA had to demonstrate the man and machine could work in space for so long.
The second goal was to dock with orbiting vehicles and to maneuver the docked combination using the propulsion system. Later these techniques would be used when the lunar lander separates from the command module in the lunar orbit.
The third was to perfect the methods of reentry into the atmosphere and land on a pre-selected point on Earth. The goal of making a landlanding was canceled in 1964, however.
The Gemini capsule was an improvement of Mercury. That's why it was originally called "Mercury Mark II". It had to be maneuvered by two pilots. The module had twice the weight of the Mercury capsules, but size of the cabin was increased by only 50 per cent. As a result the Gemini capsules appeared to be more cramped. In case of emergency the pilots could leave the capsule with an escape rocket instead of ejection seats. The batteries that provided Mercury with electrical power were replaced with fuel cells.
The capsule sat on a Titan 2 launch vehicle. The docking maneuvers were practiced with unmanned Agena upper stages that were always started shortly before the Titan 2 rockets. In order to fly the complicated docking maneuvers the maneuvering capabilities of Mercury have been improved a lot. Gemini was able to fly forward, backward, and sideways on its way around Earth. It was even possible to change orbits. These maneuvers required great precision, so besides the two astronauts the first board computers were required to make complex calculations.
The constructors of Gemini had to avoid long delays between the flights. Many parts of the spaceship were reusable. Thus the coast of the project have also been lowered. In only 20 months ten Gemini missions were launched. As there was little time between the flights space flight became routine. The ground operations became smoother and the risk for the astronauts decreased after every mission.
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