Re: Why wasn't escape tower used on Gemini?

On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:54:11 -0600, Pat Flannery <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Originally it was intended to recover Gemini on land using an
inflatable Rogallo parawing and skids, and the ejection seats would
have allowed the crew to escape if it didn't deploy correctly.

This wasn't from the beginning of the program which used parachutes for
recovery, but it did get as far as manned landing attempt which resulted
in a crash, so the concept got dropped. One fallout of this was the
horizontal landing attitude of the Gemini compared to the
heatshield-first landing of Mercury and Apollo.

At the beginning of the program, if the parawing hadn't been envisioned yet,
were the parachutes to be in the nose of the craft? If so, how far along did the
design get before the change? Was there any "fallout" from that?

Sorry if these are dumb questions...

Dale
.

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