The astronauts' influence in controlling these minutiae of Gemini's operational design went "far beyond … the normal test pilot in determining what was to be done and when," write Barton Hacker and ...

But back at the beginning of America's space program, it looked like just about anybody could have done the job--and the overqualified men tasked to fly Project Mercury knew it. "I initially said ...

No single space project in this period will be more impressive ... the docking and confirmed the viability of the procedure. Gemini astronauts tackled the goal of working in the vacuum of space ...