US Spaceflight - Gemini 10 Traditional Geocache

Gemini 10

One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 8th of 10 Gemini flights and the 14th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.

The Gemini 10 spaceflight, officially Gemini X, was a 1966 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 8th crewed Gemini flight, the 14th crewed American flight, and the 24th spaceflight of all time.

Gemini 10 established that radiation at high altitude was not a problem. After docking with their Agena booster in low orbit, Young and Collins used it to climb temporarily to 412.4 nautical miles. After leaving the first Agena, they then rendezvoused with the derelict Agena left over from the aborted Gemini 8 flight—thus executing the program's first double rendezvous. With no electricity on board the second Agena, the rendezvous was accomplished with eyes only—no radar.

After the rendezvous, Collins spacewalked over to the dormant Agena at the end of a 50-foot tether, making him the first person to meet another spacecraft in orbit. Collins then retrieved a cosmic dust-collecting panel from the side of the Agena. As he was concentrating on keeping his tether clear of the Gemini and Agena, Collins' Hasselblad camera worked itself free and drifted away, so he was unable to take photographs during the spacewalk.

Gemini 10 was designed to achieve the objectives planned for the last two missions—rendezvous, docking and EVA. It also hoped to dock with the Agena Target Vehicle from the Gemini 8 mission. This Agena's battery power had failed months earlier, and an approach and docking would demonstrate the ability to rendezvous with a passive object. It would be also the first mission to fire the Agena's own rocket, allowing them to reach higher orbits.

WHY HERE?

The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.

The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:

• about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
• about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
• about 5 miles - Gemini missions
• about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
• about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions

FLIGHT SUMMARY:

FTF Prize:

This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.

However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.

BONUS:

Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.

Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache

TO LEARN MORE:

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Gemini 10.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Gemini.

Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.