SURVIVING TWO WEEKS IN SPACE
Gemini 7's primary mission was to demonstrate that astronauts could live in weightlessness without significant ill effects for 14 days, the longest duration anticipated for an Apollo lunar-landing mission.
For Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, the flight was an endurance test. The cabin was very cramped--the size of the front half of a Volkswagen Beetle--and the two astronauts were the subject of numerous medical experiments.

To make their mission more bearable, Borman and Lovell wore special soft spacesuits that were easier to take off inside the cabin than earlier suits.

Lovell (left) and Borman show exhaustion and joy at the end of their two-week ordeal. They later formed two-thirds of the Apollo 8 crew, the first to circle the Moon. Lovell also commanded Gemini 12 and the ill-fated Apollo 13 lunar-landing mission.

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-- -- TIMELINE -- --


Racing to Space
The Moon decision
To reach the moon
Apollo 11
Later Apollo missions
What we learned about the Moon
After the Apollo Program


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Created: 7/99