Author Topic: Gemini Paraglider  (Read 49925 times)

Offline deaville

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #60 on: 09/16/2015 07:14 am »
Found this and thought it might answer a few questions.

http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/05/22/losing-rogallo-from-gemini

Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear bright until they speak.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #61 on: 09/18/2015 10:21 pm »
Found this and thought it might answer a few questions.

http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/05/22/losing-rogallo-from-gemini



That author has a reputation for plagiarizing other works. You might look for better sources.

Offline Bob Shaw

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #62 on: 09/18/2015 10:53 pm »
Found this and thought it might answer a few questions.

http://amyshirateitel.com/2011/05/22/losing-rogallo-from-gemini



That author has a reputation for plagiarizing other works. You might look for better sources.

I don't mind her shameless, non-attributed use of other people's hard work at all; I really can't stand the shoddy, slipshod way that she does it! When she first started popping up here and there I used to write kind messages to her, pointing out her many errors and inviting her to put out an *update* to various articles (which, in the land of digital, she obviously could do). No reply ever came.

Sigh.

Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #63 on: 09/19/2015 01:24 am »
At least her "selected sources" list includes the best general history of Gemini, Hacker & Grimwood's On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini.  That has, admittedly mixed in with the rest of the program history, a very thorough set of discussions on the genesis, development, testing and eventual cancellation of the Rogallo wing on Gemini.

It's also available for free online at http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4203/toc.htm

 :D
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #64 on: 09/19/2015 10:50 pm »
I don't mind her shameless, non-attributed use of other people's hard work at all;

Plagiarizing other peoples' work is a far more serious issue than being sloppy. It's what got her fired from Ars Technica.

Offline Bob Shaw

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #65 on: 09/28/2015 07:12 pm »
I don't mind her shameless, non-attributed use of other people's hard work at all;

Plagiarizing other peoples' work is a far more serious issue than being sloppy. It's what got her fired from Ars Technica.


I was being a tad tongue-in-cheek there, Ted!

Offline DMeader

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #66 on: 09/29/2015 02:24 pm »
Did any actual hardware for the paraglider ever make it into any of the spacecraft?

Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #67 on: 09/29/2015 04:23 pm »
Not really.  The spacecraft were all designed with gear wells and doors for the landing skids, but by the time the program got into the second to third manned flight, extra equipment was being stashed into those spaces.  While McDonnell built and tested the gear, no actual spacecraft ever flown was outfitted with the skids and associated deployment struts, etc.

None of the production spacecraft was ever fitted with the actual paraglider package into the recovery section in the nose.  Heck, the entire deployment sequence was only demonstrated once, IIRC, by NAA during the qualification trials.  And that was on a model, not on an actual spacecraft.

There are still people out there who say that we dodged a bullet by cancelling paraglider.  A lot of the thinking in the astronaut office at the time, I've read, was that the first attempt to land using paraglider would have resulted in a risky ejection when paraglider either failed to deploy or went unstable in glide, the two problem areas that were never completely licked during the development program.

And that ejection sequence was particularly hairy -- you had to cut loose from the paraglider, free fall in the capsule until you were clear of the wing fluttering behind you, and then eject from the free-falling capsule.  Depending on where in the landing sequence you had to eject, you could literally be ejecting from a free-falling capsule less than 500 feet off the ground.  Any delay in the ejection process meant you augured into the lakebed at terminal velocity.  And that all assumes you don't start to free-fall heads-down, which would have been a fatal situation.

Even if the ejection was successful, you lost the spacecraft, plus ran a risk of losing the experiments and film still stored within it.  There was no room nor weight allowance for an emergency backup ringsail 'chute in addition to the Rogallo wing -- if the wing failed, the ejection seat was your only other choice.  The emergency backup 'chute system NAA designed for the testing program was to save the test capsule; it was never intended to be incorporated into flight vehicles.

It would have been a particularly bad day had you lost a crew that had just completed a successful mission in the final few seconds of the flight.  And it would have invited a lot of unwanted Congressional attention, even if the crew survived, to have spent that many millions of dollars only to lose all of your film and your experimental results because you smashed the spacecraft to flinders at the end.  The Liberty Bell 7 occurrence would have paled in comparison.
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Bob Shaw

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #68 on: 10/17/2015 11:47 pm »
For a long time, one of the training vehicles was in the Manchester Museum of Science and Technology in er, Manchester, in the UK - I'll try to find some photos. They also had an Apollo 17 parachute, IIRC.

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Gemini Paraglider
« Reply #69 on: 10/18/2015 03:07 am »
There are still people out there who say that we dodged a bullet by cancelling paraglider. 

When McD came up with the Big Gemini proposal (go get the current issue of Spaceflight for my article on that) they initially considered several landing options including the paraglider. They ultimately ruled that out in favor of a parachute (special kind of square chute, but still a parachute). It would be interesting to learn why they ruled out the paraglider considering that they would have had extra time to develop it. Obviously they did not have confidence in their ability to eventually make it work.

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