Gemini 6 Capsule Being Readied At Kansas Cosmosphere

It was the first American spacecraft ever to dock with another. Twenty-eight years later, Gemini 6 is back in the shop at a Kansas museum, on its way to its final repository in Oklahoma.

The capsule looks tiny when compared to the Apollo relics of the 1960s and 1970s, or the space shuttles in the current NASA fleet. But getting it ready for permanent display has been a grueling, painstaking task for Jim Remar at the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson (KS). Remar and two other restorers have spent about 200 hours over the past few months, carefully cleaning the spacecraft's exterior.

"We used a lot of dental picks," said restoration team member Dale Capps in an interview with the Wichita Eagle.

The team has also scavenged some 200 instruments for the project -- mostly from other spent spacecraft. Remar, director of collections and restorations at the Cosmosphere, said it "gives you a great appreciation for what they did. It's just amazing."

Remar says it also gives him a sense of history. Sitting in the command couch where Astronaut Wally Schirra sat in December, 1965, the museum executive wonders what it would have been like on the day when the spacecraft's Titan II ignited, burned for only a moment, then shut down. The problem was described as the failure of a launch pad umbilical to release as the engines fired up (pictured above). Schirra had to decide whether to pull the handles that would have ignited the capsule's escape rockets. He didn't.

"That took a lot of courage," Remar said. "He had to make a split-second decision whether to abort the mission or not." The decision kept the Gemini program from going wildly off schedule. Gemini 6 launched without a hitch three days later.

The three Cosmosphere restorers continue to plod along, consulting NASA manuals when necessary. "It takes lots of patience," Capps said. "There's no point in trying to rush anything. You just lose ground then."

Gemini 6 will eventually be put on display at the Oklahoma State Museum of History. Thomas Stafford, the other crew member on the 1965 flight, is a native of Oklahoma.

FMI: www.cosmo.org