Re: Gemini

- Were the astronauts in their suits for the whole flight, or were they able
to get out of them?

Except for VII they were in their suit for the whole flight. VII (Borman, Lovell) had the G5C suit which was designed to be taken off. Basically it was a soft suit with a soft helment under which Borman and Lovell wore regular pilot helmets.

Lovell spent much of the flight with his suit off and Borman on as their was a mission rule that one pilot had to have his suit on. Finally after Gemini VI left, they were both permitted to take off their suits.



- Either way, relieving themselves had to be a trick in such a small space.
Did they use the Apollo-style plastic bags, or what?

The G4C had zippers in strategic places and they used relief tubes, plasic bags taped to their butts, and of course the infamous blue germicide in pill form that were broken and kneaded in the bags after their business was done. :-P

A urine bag burst early in the Gemini VII flight. Rumors was that the frogmen were physically repelled by the odor upon opening the capsule.



- Did the seats fold up, or was the space under them taken?

They were both ejection seats and they had storage cabinets that were against the heatshield between the astronaut. It is a lot like sitting a compact car jammed full with kids, toys, and stuff on a summer vacation.

They had mirrors on rotating sticks to help see the overhead controls that were toward the rear as well as the storage cabinets.


I have the techincal manuals for Gemini where you can just about answer any questions at http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit.


Rob Conley

P.S. I have links to a freeware space simulator and a gemini addon I wrote that has accurate physics.
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