>>Project Gemini aimed to develop and test the techniques and technologies needed for longer duration space flight.

Project Gemini's ten manned missions gave NASA the knowledge needed to successfully place mankind on the moon.

>>Roger.

Zero G and I feel fine.

Capsule is turning around.

Oh, that view is tremendous.

>>After thre successful orbits of the Earth, John Glenn returned to Central Florida on February 20th, 1962 and was celebrated for his heroic achievement.

Glenn became the first U.S.

astronaut to orbit the Earth during the third huma spaceflight of Project Mercury.

Just a month prior, NASA announced its second human spaceflight program, named Project Gemini.

>>Gemini was so incredibly important because that was the program that the engineers and the astronauts used to prove we had all the skills that we needed to successfully get to the moon.

Shortly after our 15 minutes and 32 seconds or such in space, what does President Kennedy say?

I believe this nation shall commit itself in achieving the goal before this decade out... >>Of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

>>Those guys in the trenches were "Goll what's this guy talking about?"

One day we were like a mom and pop and grocery store.

The next day, after he said that, we were like, Walmart or Amazon.

>>Got 15 minutes in space, 15 minutes.

And we're already saying we're going to go to the moon by the end of the decade.

>>We started that not long before that on the Mercury program.

We didn't know if your eyes were going to pop out when you went in space.

So it was a rapid succession of improvements.

>>I think all the guys will tell you back then going to work.

You didn't know what the day was going to bring because we had tremendous number of problems.

>>By the time the Mercury program ends, there are so many technical challenges that the engineers at NASA had to be able to figure out before we were going to be able to get to the moon, do anything on the moon, and bring those men safely back, because at minimum, this is a six day trip, and those batteries in 1963 were still only lasting for 25 hours.

>>We were trying to make a goal that everyone knew about.

And I can tell you, we the workers, the people doing the work, we understood that we were part of history.

>>Our whole intention was the moon program and getting to the moon, that was you want an outlook on life was we're going to get there.