Author Topic: Blue Gemini models (Read 4708 times)

Ronpur50 · « **on:** 09/09/2015 10:11 pm »

After reading Mike Jenne's new book, Blue Gemini, I decided to construct a model of his Gemini Interceptor spacecraft. The Modified Gemini has a longer nose to house a bigger radar for tracking Soviet Satellites and an extendable boom called the "disrupter". The disrupter deploys a snare-like ring that encircles the target satellite and holds a package onto the sat. The package can either disrupt the electronics of the sat, use small thrusters to make it tumble or just destroy it.

Here are 3 photos of the Gemini-I with deployed boom. The last one shows it snaring a Soviet station, which I found in a image search. The model is a 1/48th scale Revell Gemini with a scratchbuilt boom.

topopesto · « **Reply #1 on:** 09/12/2015 05:48 pm »

Beautiful, very nice!

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #2 on:** 09/14/2015 09:04 pm »

Thank you. I just finished reading an advanced copy of the second book and it is even more exciting than the first. Don't miss it!

Last night, I took a photo of Gemini IV and modified it into a USAF Gemini Blue launch.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #3 on:** 11/06/2015 10:40 pm »

I built a model of the Gemini under the Rogallo wing. And put together this photo of the landing at White Sands back in 1969.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #4 on:** 11/06/2015 10:45 pm »

Here are some photos of the actual model. It is 1/48th scale, the old Revel model again.

DatUser14 · « **Reply #5 on:** 11/06/2015 11:21 pm »

Cool. I have yet to read Mr. Jenne's book, though I did speak with him at the NMUSAF MOL Panel.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #6 on:** 11/06/2015 11:34 pm »

Quote from: DatUser14 on 11/06/2015 11:21 pm

Cool. I have yet to read Mr. Jenne's book, though I did speak with him at the NMUSAF MOL Panel.

It is amazing. The insight he has into the military from his own experience makes it so real, I felt like I was reading a history of a real program.

the_other_Doug · « **Reply #7 on:** 11/07/2015 12:50 am »

I wonder if Blue Gemini, if it did use the paraglider, would have used the inflated version you modeled so well, Ron. The last I heard of it, by the end of the development tests (after paraglider had been definitely dropped from NASA's Gemini program), NAA was only able to achieve a full deployment sequence with a "limp" (uninflated) version of the beast.

Of course, there was never a full deployment through to landing ever accomplished in the entire development and test program, but that's another matter.

Excellent work, though! I am impressed.

Ronpur50 · « **Reply #8 on:** 11/07/2015 02:32 am »

Thanks, Doug.

This is an illustration the author's brother did showing a less than nominal landing. He used the same version. I will need to research the other version you mention, I don't recall seeing it.

This project is almost as fun as the Voyage photos and models, but far more interesting because I am in contact with the author. I had to check with him on the color of the Rogallo wing, and he had in fact, never mentioned it. So we brainstormed and decided on a subdued scheme. The last thing we thought the USAF would want would be a bright orange paraglider flying over some population with a Gemini hanging from it.

Dalhousie · « **Reply #9 on:** 11/08/2015 01:57 am »

Quote from: Ronpur50 on 09/09/2015 10:11 pm

After reading Mike Jenne's new book, Blue Gemini, I decided to construct a model of his Gemini Interceptor spacecraft. The Modified Gemini has a longer nose to house a bigger radar for tracking Soviet Satellites and an extendable boom called the "disrupter". The disrupter deploys a snare-like ring that encircles the target satellite and holds a package onto the sat. The package can either disrupt the electronics of the sat, use small thrusters to make it tumble or just destroy it.

Here are 3 photos of the Gemini-I with deployed boom. The last one shows it snaring a Soviet station....

Which is why the said Almaz station carried a 23 mm cannon.....

the_other_Doug · « **Reply #10 on:** 11/08/2015 06:43 pm »

Yeah, the Noodleman gun. Which was supposedly never fired while a crew occupied any of the Almaz stations.

I've heard rumors, though, that at least one of the crews couldn't resist firing the gun before they came home.

With all the debris you would generate, though, by blasting away at a closing interceptor, some of which would inevtiably come back and slam into the Almaz, I cannot help but be reminded of a wonderful line from Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" -- "You fools! You've killed us!"

Dalhousie · « **Reply #11 on:** 11/08/2015 08:33 pm »

Quote from: the_other_Doug on 11/08/2015 06:43 pm

Yeah, the Noodleman gun. Which was supposedly never fired while a crew occupied any of the Almaz stations.

I've heard rumors, though, that at least one of the crews couldn't resist firing the gun before they came home.

With all the debris you would generate, though, by blasting away at a closing interceptor, some of which would inevtiably come back and slam into the Almaz, I cannot help but be reminded of a wonderful line from Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" -- "You fools! You've killed us!"

The fools would be the people trying to intercept an armed Almaz in the first place and thinking to get away with it.