Pat Flannery wrote:



John Charles wrote:

Mary, thanks, but I think you are referring to the Parasev test
vehicle built by Milt Thompson and NASA out of odds and ends at
Edwards. Later, North American Aviation actually built an inflatable
Rogallo wing (of the same configuration that was intended for Gemini
landings) and attached it to a Gemini boilerplate capsule, and had a
test pilot (sometimes it was Jack Swigert, before he went to NASA) fly
and land it.

THAT is somehing I have read about and imagined, but would love to see
the footage!


I want to see the footage where it has a really hard landing, and they
decide that this is _not_ the way that Gemini is going to land.
So...what about rotor blades on the capsule? Then it can autorotate in
to a landing! The Soyuz team came up with this idea:
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/s/soyrotor.jpg
See the rotor blades? See the landing legs? See the reentry capsule? See
the big dent in the side of the reentry capsule?
'Nuff said.

Pat

I had a plastic model of a Gemini spacecraft. The kit came
with the option of modeling the craft for landing on land.