Gemini Program Files, 1952 - 2005

The Gemini Program files include a small selection of personal correspondence and a wide range of working documents. Personal items consist of congratulatory correspondence from family and colleagues at NASA. The working documents begin with materials related to the systems of Gemini spacecraft, equipment, and basic operating procedures. Technical documents detailing Gemini systems are followed by training materials used by Neil Armstrong during the Gemini program. The arrangement of this material reflects the order in which materials were filed and labeled by Armstrong. Central to the Gemini series are the manuals, flight checklists, and handbooks pertaining to all vehicles involved in the Gemini program, including the G-8 spacecraft, the Agena docking vehicle first utilized in Gemini VIII, as well as handbooks for the Titan II rocket propulsion systems. The in-flight checklist books, intact with Velcro fasteners and original ring clips, are items of interest, having been used in-flight during Gemini VIII and as part of the ground support crew during XI. The series also houses final flight plans for Gemini Missions VI, VII, IX-A, X, XI, and XII. Transcripts of Gemini VIII air-to-ground communications, pilot reports, and a collection of reports on Gemini VIII experiments comprise the series of reports within the Gemini program files and remain in the order in which Armstrong himself preserved them, along with a set of reports detailing the scientific results gleaned from the Gemini program. The series includes a collection of material prepared by NASA for the press. A recently compiled binder containing the Gemini Photo Catalog is included here as well, though it was produced circa 2005. The series concludes with one box of oversized materials that includes diagrams and schematics of the Gemini spacecraft'’s systems, as well as orbital and star charts, and draft drawings of the Gemini VIII mission patch.