Space Exploration

Space Exploration

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 9. GEMINI G2-G PROTOTYPE SPACESUIT GLOVES WITH WORKING FINGER-TIP LIGHTS, MADE FOR ALAN SHEPARD, CA 1963.

GEMINI G2-G PROTOTYPE SPACESUIT GLOVES WITH WORKING FINGER-TIP LIGHTS, MADE FOR ALAN SHEPARD, CA 1963

Auction Closed

July 20, 09:53 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

GEMINI G2-G SPACESUIT GLOVES

GEMINI G2-G Prototype spacesuit gloves with working fingertip lights, MADE FOR ALAN SHEPARD, AND manufactured by B.F. Goodrich FOR NASA, CA 1963


A pair of matching G2-G gloves, approximately 12 inches long, aluminized nylon (remnants from the earlier silver Mercury suits), backs of hands and thumbs in white nylon, palms in gray texturized material, tightening with laces at backs of hands, index and middle fingertips outfitted with small, still functional light-bulbs, bulbs powered by two AA batteries housed within battery pockets on back of hands, wrists with aluminum connector rings. Each glove with label reading "G-2G-18/LG [Left Glove] (and) RG [Right Glove] / SIZE: SHEPARD"


VERY RARE, EARLY PROTOTYPE GEMINI SPACESUIT GLOVES, COMPLETE WITH WORKING FINGERTIP LIGHTS. Project Gemini was critical to the objective of landing a man on the moon, and the US astronauts were given a variety of tasks that were not assigned to the previous project Mercury, including conducting spacewalks. As such, their suits needed to be adapted to the new program requirements. In 1962, the Manned Spacecraft Center awarded contracts to B.F. Goodrich for the development of a pressure suit system, which NASA later specified was to be used in the Gemini program. B.F. Goodrich completed the G2-G model in January of 1963, however the suit was rejected by NASA in favor of a suit designed by the David Clark Company. NASA, however, decided to retain the helmet, gloves, and other hardware designed by B.F. Goodrich. 


REFERENCE

Young, Amanda, Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection, pp. 40-47; see Monchaux, Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo.