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  • Gemini EVA Maneuvering Unit

    This maneuvering unit mockup was designed during the Gemini program of the early 1960s in an effect to study the best ways to work outside of spacecraft. Similar units became operational in the early 1980s during the Space Shuttle program and were used to retrieve several satellites.Click here to

  • Marquardt Space Sled

    A design for individual space maneuvering in the vicinity of a spacecraft, the space sled lost out to the seat-like maneuvering unit. The mannequin riding the sled is wearing an experimental space suit that was one of a series tested in the mid-1960s. Unlike the space sled, the suit was part of a

  • Space Hardware

    The effort to operate freely in the environment of space encountered a host of challenges never before experienced in such magnitude by earth-bound humanity. Weightlessness or Zero "G" was one of the most difficult to overcome, and a variety of unique devices were designed and tested to make human

  • Advance Biomedical Capsule Training Couch

    At Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., Air Force researchers trained chimpanzees to push levers in response to timed and colored lights in order to approximate human behavior in spaceflight. The training couch on display contains two levers and a selection of lights. Holloman's group of six chimps

  • HAM's Undergarment & Flight Jacket

    HAM's UndergarmentAn astrochimp named HAM (for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center) wore this undergarment on his Jan. 31, 1961 suborbital flight on Mercury-Redstone 2. Biomedical sensors recorded his pulse, respiration, breath-depth and temperature during the 16.5 minute flight, in which HAM was

  • Missile Alert Facility Model

    This model depicts a Minuteman II alert facility. The complex was surrounded by a double fence with sensitive motion-detecting alarms. Each Launch Control Center (LCC) served 10 Minuteman missiles in individual hardened underground silos, typically spaced about 4 to 14 miles apart. Individual silos

  • Launching Missiles

    Only the President of the United States can authorize a strategic missile launch. In the Minuteman II system, the launch sequence took less than five minutes. This is what would have happened: 1. The U.S. receives warning of an attack from early-warning satellites or ground radars. The North

  • Alert Facility Support

    Missile alert facilities require around-the-clock security and maintenance support. At Minuteman II sites, an enlisted facility manager oversaw all topside operations to support the combat crew and the missile system. Two enlisted flight security controllers monitored the alert facility and all ten

  • Missile Combat Crews

    Minuteman II combat crews included a commander and deputy commander. These officers underwent extensive training and constant drills to be sure they mastered every aspect of controlling nuclear weapons. While on alert, they maintained constant vigilance, managed maintenance logs and activities and

  • Minuteman Timeline

    1958 -- Department of Defense approves development 1961 -- First successful test flight 1962 -- Minuteman I operational (150 Minuteman 1A and 650 Minuteman 1B deployed in 16 squadrons) 1966 -- Minuteman II operational (450 deployed in nine squadrons) 1969 -- Last Minuteman I replaced by Minuteman