The years just seem to fly by of late, muchachos. I
simply cannot believe this little epistle on my
wonderful space summer is from 10 fricking years ago! You’ve heard
oldsters remark how the days speed by for ‘em. Well, according to
neuroscientists, that might be real and not just our imaginations or the
effects of ennui out in the suburbs (with which I am well acquainted). Maybe,
as we age, the brain’s “clock” slows down, causing external time and events to
seem to speed up…
That sure sounds reasonable to me. I cannot fathom how that
birthday week of Unk’s in July recounted above could possibly be a decade in
the rearview mirror. But what a week it was! As you’ll learn if you read
thatun, I spent those days in July recreating the Race to the Moon on Chaos
Manor South’s dining room table, drinking margaritas and eating Mexican food,
and…to cap it all off, driving hundreds of miles to Chiefland, Florida and
imaging hundreds of Herschel objects. Today, just thinking about all
that makes me tired.
Back then, though, it was a good tired by the time my
week was out. I was only on the verge of my 60s, still pretty hardcore as an
observer, and able to stay up till the wee hours—under the stars or not. Ten
years down the line? Heck, y’all, I am lucky to make it to 2300 on or off
the observing field (my backyard, not the CAV’s Billy Dodd Field these
nights).
Still, this week was once again my birthday week, and what’s
a birthday without involving astronomy, or at least “space”? It looked like the
former was o-u-t. The weather here on the borders of the Great Possum Swamp was
and is horrible. Even if it ain’t cloudy (or thundering and raining, more
like), it is miserable. It’s not dark enough to do anything till 2100 at
least, and it is miserably hot and humid (and hazy) even then. Oh, and
the bugs? They just love your old Uncle—as a square meal!
So…that left…SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER. Not with the
crew of the fictional Enterprise, but with some real space
heroes. What in tarnation is Unk goin’ on about now? Has being
over the hill and ready to proceed down the opposite slope deprived him of what
little sense he had?
 |
| Found it! |
I was vaguely thinking the other day I might get my plastic
space program going again. It would if nothing else be something spacey
I could do in comfort indoors. That thought was quickly followed by me
recalling I’d lost the kit I really wanted to build, Revell’s 1/24th
scale Gemini spacecraft, when we moved from Chaos Manor South to suburbia. That
kinda drew a pall over that idea.
No replacing the Revell either. The long out of “print” kit
can be had on eBay but expect to pay a hundred bucks for it. Which didn’t seem
reasonable to cheap ol’ Unk given current economic conditions. Oh, well…I
guessed that meant the closest I could come to recreating that fondly remembered
10-years-ago week was drinking a Margarita or two at El Giro’s…or maybe just an
Ultra down at Heroes Sports Bar and Grill.
And then…and then…sometimes the stars align. I opened the door to the closet in the New Manse’s office to get something—I
can’t remember what and it does not matter—and for some unknown reason, looked
up. What should I spy? A familiar box on the very top shelf. Could it be? No…no
way! Yep, my “lost” Gemini capsule. And the box next to the kit? The Realspace
add-on accessories to fix the mistakes Revell made and add the things to the
kit they left out. I figgered this must be some kinda sign I really should
build the Gemini capsule.
What to do first? Well, I take this rather seriously. If I’m
gonna build a spacecraft model, I’m gonna build a spacecraft model. I’d
need to do some research. I still had the excellent DVDs mentioned in the
above-linked blog entry, DVDs from Spacecraft Films. I wondered, though,
if they might have some more Gemini-related films available…
I was actually somewhat surprised
to discover their website is still on the air in this mostly post-DVD age. It is,
but has an untended, near-ghost town look and feel to it. Trying to order any
of their products takes you nowheres. But that was OK, I still had their Gemini
disks and, more importantly, found there’s tons of material on Project
Gemini—documentaries, old NASA films, you name it—on cotton-picking YouTube. Tons,
campers.
 |
| Gemini was a hot rod compared to Mercury… |
It was reassuring there was plenty of reference material available,
since Gemini (pronounced “Jiminy,” like the cricket, not jeh·muh·nai
like the constellation, young’uns) is the redheaded stepchild of NASA. Almost
everybody knows about Project Mercury. It was there first, sending Alan Shepard
and John Glenn and the rest of the legendary Mercury 7 into space just slightly
behind the Russkies. Even folks who don’t know as much about NASA as my cat,
have likely heard of Apollo. Gemini? Not so much.
Truth is, that One Small Step of Apollo would have been far
too large a leap from Mercury. There had to be a program in-between. Something
that allowed us to perfect the vital arts of rendezvous and docking. But not just that. Mercury was a primitive
little spacecraft that depended on batteries. The longest duration Mercury mission
was Gordo Cooper’s Mercury 9, Faith 7. After less than a day and a half,
the Mercury spacecraft was on the ropes with multiple failures. We’d have to do
better to get to the Moon.
Gemini was a considerably more advanced spacecraft. Oh, it
wasn’t roomy. There was no room for the crew to speak of. The two
astronauts (one of the reasons the program was named “Gemini”) had to endure
something akin to spending an entire mission in the front seat of a VW bug.
But, yes, the Gemini capsule made Mercury look like a Wright Flyer. All but the
earliest spacecraft were powered by fuel cells rather than batteries, and the
capsule was much more “flyable,” which it would have to be for
rendezvous and docking.
Gemini and the Gemini pilots delivered on that. Not only did
Gemini VI and VII rendezvous in space, there were highly successful dockings
with the Agena Target Vehicle, five of them over the course of the program. The first, done on Neil Armstrong’s Gemini
VIII mission, was a near disaster, not due to Agena, but due to a stuck
thruster on the Gemini spacecraft itself. Armstrong dealt with it in his accustomed
cool and competent manner and the mission was deemed a success despite an early
landing being dictated by Mission Rules after the thruster problem.
It was with Gemini we began to first catch up with and then
surpass the Soviets. Gemini set some impressive records. In addition to those
docking missions, Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon’s Gemini XI set an altitude
record of 739.2 nautical miles (with the help of an Agena’s engine). On the
last Gemini, Gemini XII, Buzz Aldrin made a record-breaking 5-hour and
30-minute EVA. Maybe most importantly, Gemini VII, crewed by Frank Borman and
Jim Lovell, set an endurance record of nearly 14 days. That proved NASA’s spacecraft
and astronauts could hold up for considerably longer than the time required for
a lunar mission.
Post-Gemini, it looked as if it were full-speed-ahead to the
Moon for NASA and the consarned Russkies would be left in the dust. Alas, then
came the disastrous Apollo I fire that claimed the lives of Gus Grissom (who
was the odds-on favorite to be the first man on the Moon), Ed White (the first
NASA space-walker on Gemini IV), and Roger Chaffee. That set the Apollo program
back twenty months and turned the space race into a little bit more of a
race (at least we thought so; the Soviet lunar program was in real trouble).
Apollo I notwithstanding, Gemini prepared us for the Moon.
That’s a brief summary of NASA’s Gemini. If you want the
complete story, there are plenty of resources including the above-mentioned
NASA documentaries to be found on YouTube. Want a book? There are many. Some I
can recommend? If you’re a space nut like ol’ Unk, you probably know about Apogee Books. They are still in business and offer an
outstanding volume on Gemini. They also have individual books on some separate Gemini
missions.
What did Unk need to do to get his own Project Gemini off
the ground? I needed a few inexpensive supplies…the usual things required for
building plastic models. Much of what I was using 8 – 10 years ago—paints,
putty, glue, airbrush propellent—was ready for the trash. Luckily, our local
hobby shop (we have a real hobby shop, Hobby Town, in addition to the strange
and execrable Hobby Lobby) fixed me right up. Those things obtained, I thought
I’d go ahead and do something about the decal situation.
 |
| The washing of the parts… |
The Revell 1/24 Gemini comes with a tiny, maybe 2” x 2”,
sheet of decals. Not only are they few, the included decals are mostly wrong.
Also, not surprisingly, the sheet was yellowed and looking brittle nearly 10
years down the line. Luckily, another space modeling goto, Steve, the
CultTVMan, is
still in business, too. He got me three big sheets of authentic Gemini decals
in just a few days…
Just before Unk’s birthday. Which arrived as it
always has with fun and foolishness. How did your increasingly aged Uncle
celebrate this year? It was not that different from the space summer
that decade ago. Oh, no Chiefland…I haven’t been Down Chiefland Way these seven years, so I suppose that is finis for
me. But, no, not that different;
there was even an expedition of sorts.
On my birthday eve, I did a sorta spacey thing for Apollo 11 anniversary week by
watching Sandra Bullock in Gravity on HBO Max. When it first came out, I
remarked here that, while I appreciated being able to watch the pretty Ms.
Bullock cavort in her skivvies, I was disappointed in the scientific faux
pas in the movie. I hadn’t watched it again since it was in the theatres
(which I was amazed to realize was nearly 10 years ago). This time? The film looked beautiful
on the 4K TV…and…I must be gettin’ less critical and cynical in my old age,
cause I really enjoyed it.
The big day brought that expedition, to Meaher State Park
here on the Causeway across Mobile Bay. Why there? It’s a nice place to activate
for (amateur radio) Parks on the Air. Miss
Dorothy and I drove out to Meaher State Park on Mobile Bay, which is only about
half an hour away, and I made contacts all the way from Maine to Texas and
everywhere in-between with my battery-powered 20-watt Xiegu G90 transceiver.
And as a suitably appropriate finish to the day? Well, there was Mexican food. El
Giro’s, our ancient haunt back when we lived at Chaos Manor South (and often the
site of our legendary Christmas Eve dinners), burned down many years ago. Not long after,
they built a new El Giro’s out in west Mobile, which, we found after we moved
out here, was barely three miles away from our new home. Yes, sometimes the stars, yes, really do align.
But what about that Revell Gemini spacecraft, huh, what
about that? I got it underway, beginning the Saturday before my birthday
with the ritual Washing of the Parts (to get rid of any lingering mold-release
lubricant). But…I decided what I want to do is Gemini VIII, the
Armstrong mission. To that end, I ordered the Apogee book on that mission to
use as reference and am cooling my heels until it arrives. Rest assured; I
will update you as we go along, at least occasionally.
I thought I was done with long, long
blogs, but I’ve just kept going and going like the dadgum Energizer Bunny. We
are well and truly out of time and space. Almost…
 |
| El Giro’s! |
What’s next? For my personal space program? When I finish
Gemini VIII? As I mentioned here, the Launch Umbilical
Tower I build for my Airfix Saturn V was destroyed during our move to the
suburbs from Chaos Manor South. And at this time, it appears the Saturn V may
be gone as well. Oh, there are a few more boxes for me to look it and I have my
fingers crossed, but I am not overly hopeful.
So, while it might be covering old ground, I think I
might do another Saturn and that LUT too. I have the feeling being able to work
on the latter for longer stretches and without any pressure to finish may make
it a more fun and less harrowing experience. Be that as it may, Uncle Rod’s
Little Space Museum is opening up again.
Astronomy-wise? Amateur astronomy-wise? I have but
two words: “Destination Moon.” Unless the weather becomes a lot more
comfortable and clear a lot sooner than I think it well, deep space, the deep
sky, will wait a few months more.
