This capsule is a full-scale Test Tow Vehicle (TTV) built to train Gemini astronauts in a landing procedure that ultimately was not used. At the start of the Gemini program in 1961, NASA considered having the two-man Gemini capsule land on a runway after its return from space, rather than parachute into the ocean. The controlled descent and landing would use an inflatable paraglider wing of the type invented by Francis Rogallo and NASA.
Photographer:
Dane Penland
ID#:
WEB11734-2011
Source:
National Air and Space Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution