1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
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Gemini 7 was the fourth crewed flight in NASA’s Gemini program. It launched Dec. 4, 1965, with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell aboard who spent nearly 14 days in space, making a total of 206 orbits. Gemini 7 was always planned to be a long duration flight, investigating the effects of fourteen days in space on the human body. This doubled the length of time that anyone had been in space and stood as the longest spaceflight duration record for five years. This required NASA to solve some of the problems of long-duration space flight, such as stowage of waste and timing the crew’s workday to match that of the prime shift ground crews; both men worked and slept at the same time. Gemini 7 conducted 20 experiments, the most of any Gemini mission, including studies of nutrition in space. The astronauts also evaluated a lightweight spacesuit, the G5C, which proved uncomfortable. The high point of the mission came on the 11th day with the rendezvous with Gemini 6A. This was rescheduled to occur concurrently with Gemini 7’s flight due to problems with an earlier Gemini 6 mission.
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