Why were apollo 2 6 unmanned

The nose rendezvous and recovery section came off when the main parachute was deployed. The cabin section splashed down horizontally, with the two hatches on top. Spacecraft Specifications Length in orbit : 5. A heat shield protected the Gemini spacecraft against the enormous heat generated by reentry into the atmosphere at more than 27, kilometers 17, miles per hour.

Like those of other early American and Soviet manned spacecraft, Gemini's heat shield derived from ballistic-missile warhead technology. The dish-shaped shield created a shock wave in the atmosphere that held off most of the heat. The rest was dissipated by ablation—charring and evaporation—of the heat shield's surface.

Ablative shields were not reusable. Used in the Gemini Program to boost the two-man Gemini spacecraft into Earth orbit. Ten manned missions were flown. Launch Vehicle Specifications Height with spacecraft : 33 meters feet Thrust at lift off: , kilograms , pounds.

American astronaut Edward H. White II was the pilot for the Gemini-Titan 4 space flight. He floated in zero gravity during the third revolution of the Gemini 4 spacecraft. White is attached to the spacecraft by a ft. The visor of his helmet is gold plated to protect him from the unfiltered rays of the sun. Lovell Jr. Their primary mission was to show that humans could live in weightlessness for 14 days, a space endurance record that would stand until Their spacecraft also served as the target vehicle for Gemini 6, piloted by Walter M.

Schirra Jr. Stafford, who carried out the world's first space rendezvous. These two achievements were critical steps on the road to the Moon. 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.

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.

Gemini 7 Astronauts Borman and Lovell 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.

Gemini 6 was actually launched after Gemini 7. It was supposed to take off on October 25, but the flight was cancelled after the unmanned rendezvous and docking target vehicle blew up. The mission was quickly changed to a rendezvous with Gemini 7.

Three days before Gemini 6's successful launch on December 15, , a heart-stopping shutdown of the Titan II launch vehicle's engines occurred during the first lift-off attempt. Schirra and Stafford did not eject only because of their coolness under extreme pressure. The Apollo 27 crew used the Apollo 30 CSM's main engine to boost Olympus 2 to a higher orbit with an estimated lifetime for more than a decade. Just before the Apollo 27 crew ended their record-setting stay in space - a record that would hold for more than a decade - the unmanned Apollo 31 Saturn V launched a pair of modified RTRS satellites one operational and one spare into a loose orbit around the quasi-stable Earth-moon L2 point, 33, miles beyond the moon.

It included three equally spaced radial docking ports, expanded solar arrays, an uprated life support system, a "greenhouse" plant growth chamber, improved internal lighting, an observation cupola, and guest living quarters. Starting with Apollo 33, days became the standard duration for Olympus station missions. The Apollo 27 crew had remained on board Olympus 2 for days so that NASA could have in place a "cushion" of biomedical knowledge in the event that a day mission had to be extended; for example, if a resident crew's CSM proved faulty when time came to return to Earth and a rescue mission had to be mounted.

Apollo 34 J-5 was, as indicated above, the first piloted mission to the moon's hidden Farside. The last of the J-class lunar landing missions, its crew included the first woman on the moon.

Its crew then entered the station through CC-1's meter-wide central tunnel. When their visit with the Apollo 33 crew drew to an end, they undocked their CSM from CC-1, leaving the carrier attached to Olympus 3 so that it could serve as a "pantry" or "walk-in closet.

When time came to return to Earth, they undocked CC-1's inboard port from Olympus 3. Following their deorbit burn, they undocked their CSM from CC-1's outboard port and performed a small separation maneuver. The crew gingerly docked the telescope module to the radial port on the side of Olympus 3 opposite the radial port used for Cargo Carriers, then undocked their CSM from the telescope module's outboard port and redocked with Olympus 3's axial port.

Olympus 3 thus became the world's first multi-modular space station. Attention then shifted back to the lunar track of the on-going Apollo Program. The astronauts deployed the DMLR and drove it on five traverses during their one-week stay on the moon. They then reconfigured it for Earth-guided operation. As it moved slowly over the rugged surface, it imaged its surroundings, took magnetometer readings, and occasionally stopped to collect an intriguing rock or scoop of dirt.

A pair of spotlights permitted limited lunar night-time driving. Assuming that the DMLR reaches its goal, the next ALM crew, set to land next to a pre-landed LCC next year , will retrieve its samples for return to Earth, reconfigure it for astronaut driving, use it to explore their landing site, and then reconfigure it again for Earth-guided operation. Apollo 39 docked CC-2's inboard port with one of Olympus 3's two unoccupied radial docking ports.

The start of their mission overlapped the end of the Apollo 37 resident crew's day stay in space. The handover marked the start of Olympus 3's continuous occupation, which lasted until the station was safely deorbited in July Earth-orbital operations are becoming routine; lunar-surface operations are continuing to evolve and advance. On our own timeline, Apollo has drawn to its ill-considered close. It was at this time that the agency also made a decision about how to name its Apollo missions.

The widows of the Apollo 1 crew asked that NASA retire the mission designation in honour of their husbands so they might keep the flight they never got to fly.

NASA, of course, agreed. Continuing this naming scheme, there were two options, both of which Mueller outlined in a letter to Deputy Director of the Manned Spaceflight Centre George Low.

The agency could proceed in sequence and name the first mission after the fire Apollo 2, or it could count the unmanned Saturn IB test flights as part of the Apollo series and retroactively rename them to have Apollo designations.

This meant subsequent flights following the fire would begin with Apollo 4. Apollo 4 launch on November 9, Apollo 5 used the same Saturn IB booster intended for the Apollo 1 mission, so was known internally by the same desgination: AS NASA has retroactively assigned the labels of Apollo 1, 2 and 3 to the first three unmanned missions flown.

After some discussion in which George Low offered the above as an option , it was eventually decided to keep the burnt mission as Apollo 1, to not number AS , and , and the next would be Apollo 4 AS and thereafter number the missions in flight order:.

NASA Hq. In a letter to George E. Low offered two suggestions, in keeping with the intent of the NASA instruction yet keeping the designation Apollo 1 for spacecraft Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee; and their widows requested that the designation be retained. The suggestions were:. They were either unmanned test-flights, manned test-flights Apollo 7 , or not-quite-numbered as Apollo missions AS - AS Apparently after the Apollo-1 craft was destroyed during a pre-flight test at Cape Canaveral, the first few mission through Apollo-6 were unmanned missions to test various aspects of the Apollo program - Launch vehicle, CSM, LM, and their inter-play.

Apollo-7 was the first manned mission after the Apollo 1 disaster; which seems to dovetail with the data you have. A brief summary of the Apollo program is also listed here. There were no manned flights of Apollo hardware prior to 7. The unmanned flights of which there were several apparently didn't earn much historical prominence as the manned flights from 7 onward. Apollo 1, sadly, earned its place in the history books due to the tragic fire.

Each of the flights from 7 to about 15 was notable in some way, mostly for some manned space flight "first":.