Space project Gemini pictures released

50 years ago, NASA started a space project Gemini, to prepare astronauts for the forthcoming Apollo program.

Project Gemini is a less known program, a sort of a prerequisite to Apollo program. Two missions without men onboard and 10 missions with astronauts were flown. Those were all important missions where astronauts and engineers learned and achieved quite, without which the Apollo mission to the Moon probably would not be possible. NASA released some remarkable photos of the Project Gemini, they really suck you right in the middle of the great and exciting race for space era.

Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom (center) and John W. Young (left), prime crew for the Gemini-Titan 3 mission, are shown inspecting the inside of Gemini spacecraft at the Mission Control Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida, on November 9, 1964. (NASA)

NASA Astronaut Edward White floats in zero gravity of space northeast of Hawaii, on June 3, 1965, during the flight of Gemini IV. White is attached to his spacecraft by a 25-ft. umbilical line and a 23-ft. tether line,both wrapped in gold tape to form one cord. In his right hand he carries a Hand-Held Self-Maneuvering Unit. (NASA/JSC/ASU)

The USS Intrepid pulls up alongside the Gemini-3 spacecraft during recovery operations following the successful Gemini-Titan 3 flight, on March 23, 1965. Navy swimmers stand on the spacecraft's flotation collar waiting to hook a hoist line to the Gemini-3. (NASA)

A view of Florida Straits, Grand Bahama Bank, from Gemini IV in orbit (NASA/JSC/ASU)

The face of one of the Gemini IV astronauts inside the dark capsule in June of 1965. (NASA/JSC/ASU)

Click here for more amazing Project Gemini photographs.