Purdue University Purdue e-Pubs Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference 2019 Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference The eN ar Tragedy of Gemini 8: How Neil Armstrong’s First Space Mission was almost his Last Sam Conkle
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purc Recommended Citation Conkle, Sam, "The eN ar Tragedy of Gemini 8: How Neil Armstrong’s First Space Mission was almost his Last" (2019). Purdue Undergraduate Research Conference. 6. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purc/2019/Oral_Presentations/6 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact
[email protected] for additional information. The Near Tragedy of Gemini 8: How Neil Armstrong’s First Space Mission was almost his Last Sam Conkle, Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering, Purdue University 3 February 2019 As the space race heated up in the 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scrambled to fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s charge to put a man on the moon, and return him safely to earth, all before 1970. Though the Apollo program eventually succeeded, the earlier Gemini program was crucial to ensure the necessary training and technology to make it to the moon and back. In order to reach the president’s deadline, NASA had to resort to an accelerated timeline. This involved managing risks against results, a dangerous game that nearly ended in disaster with Gemini 8. The mission represented several firsts. It was the first attempt at docking, an essential and technically challenging step that the media often overlooks in the grand scale of the moon landing.