Gemini Reference Material
This section of this web site is intended to supplement information already published in my monograph on Gemini. Clarifications, additions, photos and other new info will be posted here as appropriate.
Adapter Section Interior
Several people have asked about the correct colors for the equipment in the interior of the Adapter Section. As you may know, the Revell kit was based on a mock-up that used rather gaudy colors to point out the internal equipment. These colors were referenced on the kit's instruction sheet. The colors of the flight vehicles were much different, mostly metallic and gray. The linked photo (McDonnell photo number D4C-29124, dated June 1965) shows the inside of a flight Adapter Equipment Section, and the colors are apparent. Note the inside walls are shiny silver metallic, the large tanks are flat gray (almost metallic), the base for the tank mounts seems to be like a fiberglass tan, and the electronics racks and cables are flat gray. The only real color is provided by a few red-brown propellant lines.
Note that if the modeler installs the gold thermal curtain over the back of the Adapter you can't see any of this equipment.
Rogallo Wing Gemini
There was a concept for landing a Gemini on dry land using a para-glider (Rogallo wing). The skid landing gear planned for this were part of the mock-up used as the basis for the Revell model kit. The gear were included in the original release of the kit. These photos show the stowed gear on the mock-up:
McDonnell photos D4C-13386 (nose) and D4C-13380 (main gear).
These are two artists concepts of a Gemini landing in the desert on a Rogallo wing.
McDonnell
photos D4C-9729 (side)
and D4C-10521 (touchdown).
Big G
Other References
Here are some NASA books that
are posed in their entirety on-line.