Comments on: A new company has announced plans to use the Gemini capsule design from the 1960s to provide crew and cargo capability to orbit. https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-new-company-has-announced-plans-to-use-the-gemini-capsule-design-from-the-1960s-to-provide-crew-and-cargo-capability-to-orbit/ Thu, 21 Jun 2012 05:34:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Robert Zimmerman https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-new-company-has-announced-plans-to-use-the-gemini-capsule-design-from-the-1960s-to-provide-crew-and-cargo-capability-to-orbit/#comment-53520 Thu, 21 Jun 2012 05:34:40 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=17916#comment-53520 In reply to Steve C.

Actually, this design was tested and worked. It was originally proposed for the Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL) that the military was building in the early 1960s using the Gemini capsule. Though the program was cancelled before any astronauts ever flew, the heat shield concept was actually flown and tested successfully on November 2, 1966. To quote from my Chronological Encyclopedia of Discoveries in Space (page 55)

According MOL designs, a manned Gemini capsule and laboratory would be sent together into orbit, with access to the laboratory through a hatch cut into the capsule’s heat shield and covered with the heat shield’s ablative material. This flight tested the hatch and heat shield’s combined ability to protect the capsule during re-entry. When the capsule was recovered the engineers found that the hatch had been melted shut by the heat of reentry, demonstrating that the design worked.

]]> By: Steve C https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-new-company-has-announced-plans-to-use-the-gemini-capsule-design-from-the-1960s-to-provide-crew-and-cargo-capability-to-orbit/#comment-53518 Thu, 21 Jun 2012 05:00:27 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=17916#comment-53518 I would not have thought of putting a hatch through the heat shield. If they are doing the Big Gemini, it is not a tested and proven design, it is an incomplete, untested, 40 year old design.

]]> By: Joe https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-new-company-has-announced-plans-to-use-the-gemini-capsule-design-from-the-1960s-to-provide-crew-and-cargo-capability-to-orbit/#comment-53475 Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:39:22 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=17916#comment-53475 The Big Gemini Design had a rear docking hatch based on work done in the Manned Orbital Lab (MOL) program.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/bigemini.htm

]]> By: Steve C https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/a-new-company-has-announced-plans-to-use-the-gemini-capsule-design-from-the-1960s-to-provide-crew-and-cargo-capability-to-orbit/#comment-53456 Wed, 20 Jun 2012 02:49:04 +0000 http://behindtheblack.com/?p=17916#comment-53456 Gemini originally had advanced development plans thru the Blue Gemini path, but where are they going to put a docking hatch?

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