READY FOR LAUNCHING

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 17

READY FOR LAUNCHING

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

GAPE KENNEDY, July 18. The astronauts John Young and Michael Collins take off in their Gemini X capsule today (10.20 a.m. New Zealand time, July 19) on the nation’s most advanced manned spaceflight.

The United States has never before attempted such an intricate series of dockings and such prolonged exposure to the possible perils of space by its astronauts. The flight will be the eighth United States two-man trip into orbit, and the next to last before the three-man Apollo missions begin. The first scheduled blastoff (at 8.40 a.m. New Zealand

time, July 19), is an Atlas booster rocket carrying a 26foot Agena satellite the astronauts will use as the first of two rendezvous targets. Young and Collins are set to follow in pursuit 101 minutes later. Hard Schedule It is a hard schedule for the launch crews to meet. A delay of more than 28 minutes in getting the AtlasAgena off v.ill automatically bring a two-day postponement in the double launch. With the Agena in orbit, the Titan II rocket carrying Gemini X will have to get away within 35 seconds of its scheduled time—or also face a two-day delay. The astronauts today were fit and ready, and the two space machines were pronounced “Go.” The weather, a threat earlier, appeared at least acceptable.

Officials said there was a one-in-four chance of interference with the tight doublelaunch schedule by later afternoon thunderstorms.

John Young, a 35-year-old Navy commander, is a space veteran. He flew as second man to Virgil Grissom in

March, 1965, aboard Gemini 111, the first American twoman flight. Michael Collins, also 35, and an Air Force major, is a newcomer but he has the “grandstand” part of Gemini X’s assignment—ss minutes of standing in the open hatch of the spacecraft to

take pictures and carry out other experiments, and latei 55 minutes of drifting outside the capsule at the end of a tether. From the pictures, astroni mers hope to learn new factand confirm present theorize about the stars, their size, composition and formation.