Geminimania! (was: Gemini questions, busted thread)

As usual, my mailserver has scrolled that thread off so quickly that I had
to follow it in Google. But, anyway:

Not to really complain that much, but has anybody else here noticed that
all the ideas regarding expanding/restarting the use of Apollo CSM-based
craft are quickly blown off, but the whole group wets itself at the idea
of extending/modifying/retasking Gemini hardware? Not that I have a huge
_problem_ with that -- I was one of those kids in the mid'60s who thought
that the Gemini was the hippest thing flying, that it crystallized the
popular public image of a manned spacecraft at the time with a "style" and
"cool" that Mercury really didn't have -- it's just that every solution
based on Gemini as a logistics/CRV/space station servicing craft involved
some kind of hardware hack or kludge to deal with the fact that Gemini
_had_no_pressurized_docking_tunnel_ to transfer crew/equipment/crew's
garbage to MOL/whatever. It was designed to _gain_experience_ in things
like rendezvous/docking two spacecraft, but no provisions were made for
crew transfer (at least not in any
non-ass-hanging-over-the-edge-cowboy-like fashion). Every solution I've
seen, at EA and elsewhere, has involved either external EVA, or a hatch
cut in the heat shield (granted, they made it work fine, but all you need
is for it to fail _once_, and...) or some kind of inflated airlock (I keep
thinking of Leonov's experience with one) or a docking collar which sealed
around the _base_ of the Gemini CM (probably the least "kludgy" of all, it
seems) to allow the crew to exit the hatches into an airlock.


And, while I'm on the subject of a busted thread: imho, checking out
http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/vault/vince's%20latest%20pics/pic_14.jpg
....I'd say that smaller-scale Saturn V at the right of the image has the
top of its CM Escape Tower in the _optimum_ position. Also interesting to
note that opposite the stretched-out young lady, in the left corner, there
are two fotos of Redstone launches. (;^

--
"All over, people changing their votes,
along with their overcoats;
if Adolf Hitler flew in today,
they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash.
__________________________________________________ _________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike Flugennock's Mikey'zine, dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org