[Gemini Program]

A remarkable document containing signatures of most of the NASA astronauts of the time, including: Michael Collins, Dave Scott, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Tom Stafford, John Young, Frank Borman, Charles Bassett, Clifton Williams, Buzz Aldrin, Theodore C. Freeman, Wally Schirra, Rusty Schweickart, Gus Grissom, Walter Cunningham, Elliot See, Charles Conrad, Gene Cernan, Donn Eisele, Bill Anders, Alan Shepard, Richard Gordon, Roger Chaffee, and Gordon Cooper. 

Walter Cunningham, on the questionnaire, draws attention to the two gag names on the sign-in sheet: “Four, J.P,” a play on the jet fuel JP-4; and “Frisbee,” (perhaps a reference to being hurled into space). He also confirms the sheet’s authenticity, acknowledging that it was for a Gemini On-Board Computer training session. 

The Gemini On-Board Computer, or Gemini Guidance Computer, was designed and built by IBM and weighed just 59 pounds – remarkable for its day. It was the first computer used on a crewed spacecraft as the Project Mercury spacecraft were controlled by computers on the ground. The computer was used during the ascent as a backup guidance system, during orbital flight to help the astronauts navigate, during rendezvous to help process information related to spacecraft coordinates and reentry to feed commands directly to the reentry control system for automatic reentry or to supply information to the astronauts for manual reentry. It accomplished this with 39-bit words memory, each composed of 3 13-bit syllables, ferrite core memory of 4,096 words and a 7.143 kHz clock. 

Regarding the astronauts who attended the training session: 7 went on to become Moonwalkers, 16 would orbit the Moon and, unfortunately, 5 of those who had signed the sheet would die during their time at NASA. Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee, would both perish in the Apollo 1 disaster; and three others who would all die in T-38 crashes. Theodore Freeman, who was one of the third group of NASA astronauts, would die just 7 months later in a T-38 jet crash. He was the first fatality among the NASA Astronaut Corps. Charles Bassett was also part of the third group of NASA astronauts. He died along with Elliot See in a T-38 crash. They were both to be part of the Gemini 9 crew and were about to undergo two weeks of space rendezvous simulator training at the St. Louis McDonnell Aircraft plant where they had crashed. Clifton Williams, yet another member of the third group, would also die in a T-38 crash when a mechanical failure left him unable to control the aircraft and although he used the ejection seat, it did not save him.