 Splashdowns are iconic of the Apollo era, synonymous with the triumphant end of a mission. Very early in the space age, these images became linked to the idea of success. I mean, of all the pictures of Al Shepard's Freedom 7 flight to put on the cover of Life Magazine, they picked this one. However much Splashdowns became part of America's identity of its space agency, they weren't NASA's favored way to end a mission. They were complicated, expensive, and dangerous. So much so that between 1961 and 1965, NASA spent $165 million trying to land the second generation Gemini spacecraft on a runway using the paraglider wing called the Regallo wing. Hello everyone, I'm Amy and this is The Vintage Space. If you're new here, welcome. If you've been hanging out for a while, welcome back. Today we're going to be revisiting an old favorite of mine, the Gemini Regallo wing. This is a landing system I came across ages ago and ended up writing about for my master's thesis, and I kind of fell in love with it. So much so that I got this gorgeous Gemini Regallo tattoo a few years ago. I've always loved it for being an outlier, a strange, attempted break in the iconic Splashdowns of the Apollo era that doubles as an excellent example of just how creative things were in the era when no one really knew how best to fly in space. I've written about it before, but looking back, the old blog was way too brief. It's high time we delve into the full story. So let's go. Before we get into the how and why of NASA wanting to land Gemini with a paraglider, we have to look at the state of the art of the Mercury program, and namely, Splashdowns. When you take a step back and think about it, why were these highly skilled pilots turned astronauts, who had no shortage of experimental flight experience under their belts, passively plucked from the ocean like wet rats? It starts with the earliest days of NASA's existence and the initial decision to use capsule-inspired spacecraft. I have a video about the Apollo Command Module that goes into detail about this decision right here, but the short version. In late 1958, when NASA was newly created and the United States was starting to plan its first human spaceflight program, it fell to the Space Task Group within NASA to figure out what that spacecraft was going to look like. There were different options on the table. Some were aircraft-inspired. An orbital variant of the rocket-powered X-15 was technologically within reach, and the one-man shuttle-inspired or shuttle-like dinosaur was also already under development. Other possible vehicles were nuclear warhead-inspired. The warhead-inspired option was most fiercely championed by Max Faget, an engineer who had been working with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics' Langley Research Center, and transitioned to NASA when the NACA effectively became the space agency in 1958. He also, it should be noted, was a member of the STG. Faget had been working on a problem pretty unique to nuclear warheads. As they fell to the Earth, friction from the atmosphere generated heat, and that risked being enough to detonate the warhead safely in the air instead of destructively on its target. Faget and his team had been working on different shapes of warheads, trying to see if they could find one that offered natural protection from that friction, and they found their answer in a blunt capsule. The blunt capsule falling to Earth created a cushion of air that, coupled with an ablative heat shield, adequately protected the payload. Replacing the warhead with a human, they'd quickly realized, was a simple way to bring an astronaut back from orbit. So interesting was this prospect that in March of 1958, months after Sputnik launched and months before NASA's creation, the NACA and ARPA, the precursor organization to DARPA, undertook a joint study of whether ballistic capsules could be man-rated, a.k.a. made safe for a human occupant. Their study, which drew in industry contractors, revealed that it was a viable, if crude, way to fast-track a man into space. When presented with this method and the preliminary research, the Space Task Group recognized the value of the ballistic approach, and also recognized it came with a trade-off. Simple ballistic capsules would make Mercury a crash program. It might get an American into orbit fast, but the technology wouldn't be something NASA could build on and expand for years or even generations going forward. It would be a sort of dead-end program. The Space Task Group ultimately picked the blunt capsule for Mercury because speed was the top priority. NASA's ultimate goal was really to get an American in space before the Soviets launched one of their guys. NASA awarded the spacecraft contract to the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in January of 1959, who finalized its design with close help from Max Faget. It emerged as a truncated cone with a rounded blunt bottom. The asteroid inside was positioned on his back relative to that rounded bottom in a contoured couch, a setup that offered natural protection from the G-forces associated with reentry. Once NASA had the shape and design of the Mercury capsule, the next question was how to bring it back home. Of course, the fall through the atmosphere was a given. The whole point of the ballistic capsule was protection during the reentry phase. But the physical touchdown on Earth was still up for discussion. In 1959, the only payloads that had returned from orbit were the Corona Spy Satellites film canisters. This program, which I'm working on a deep dive about, launched satellites to photograph sites of interest in the Soviet Union and satellite countries. But because the technology wasn't able to transmit those images back via telemetry with high quality, the CIA opted to physically recover the film for processing and study. The film canisters were thus jettisoned and left to fall through the atmosphere. Parachutes deployed once the air was thick enough, slowing their fall towards the ocean, at which point an aircraft flew over top of it to snag the chute or its shrouds with a trapeze-like hook. This worked for a film canister, but it wasn't an option for the much heavier and larger Mercury spacecraft. The only applicable technology was the parachute-slowed descents. There were, by and large, three ways NASA could land Mercury. A parachute for a slow fall to a soft touchdown, adding some kind of wing element to make the vehicle glide to a landing, or a sort of hybrid of the two. A maneuverable parachute or parasail to control the landing to a pre-selected point like a runway. Research on that last option was being done at the Langley Air Force Base, led by engineer and avid kite flyer Francis M. Regalo. He'd been working on these designs since the mid-1940s, and his latest was a deployable, flexible, two-lobed, single curvature suspension-load wing that was a sort of hybrid between a parachute and a wing. His challenge was storing it and getting it to deploy cleanly, but Regalo was convinced that if he could solve that problem, his paraglider could eventually replace both parachutes and rigid wings as a landing system. He presented the design to NASA as a potential landing system for Mercury. The Space Task Group ultimately decided that the paraglider didn't fit into its Mercury program objectives. The program was focused on orbiting an astronaut, keeping him alive in space, and recovering both him and the spacecraft safely. Since every part of that mission was unknown, the STG didn't want to add another unproven technology into the mix. Splashdowns were expected to be much simpler and had a lot of benefits, especially in the context of all the unknowns about spaceflight. It was a method that took advantage of the natural cushioning of a water landing. A touchdown on land would likely require a significant, and therefore heavy, shock-absorbing system. The oceans also provided a huge target. The United States doesn't have a big expanse of land that would be a safe place to bring down an uncontrollable spacecraft. The ocean is huge, and the U.S. has a sizable navy that can access it. NASA took for granted that it had the U.S. military at its disposal since the space race was an extension of the Cold War. But it wasn't as simple as having a splashdown point. The reentry and descent was ballistic, so NASA could determine the landing point for a mission based on the spacecraft's pre-planned entry point into the atmosphere. Having ships on hand in that primary recovery zone was thus simple. But anticipating things going wrong meant NASA needed secondary and contingency zones, alternate points in a mission where the spacecraft could reenter the atmosphere and still have recovery forces in the corresponding splashdown areas. A simpler challenge was ensuring the astronaut and spacecraft were buoyant. Landing in water tanks made short work of developing flotation devices. As a final step to make sure the spacecraft would be visible, dye was set up to leak from the capsule to make sure it stood out to aircraft flying overhead. All these measures were in place to make sure the spacecraft would be visible to the recovery crews nearby. The mission would end with the spacecraft hoisted out of the water by a helicopter and deposited onto the deck of a waiting aircraft carrier. In early 1959, NASA chose the simple, parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean. A skirt was added as an additional shock absorber on impact. But even after committing to splashdowns, director of the space task group Robert Gelruth was sufficiently interested in the potential of the regalo wing that he approved a research program on the paraglider in 1960. It was just something NASA was investigating. It wasn't linked to either the Mercury program or the lunar Apollo program that was in the earliest stages of planning. Nevertheless, it was there, quietly under development. Also in 1960, Robert Gelruth proposed a follow-up program to Mercury. Mercury was only ever intended to be a simple proof of concept program. So even though no missions had yet launched, many were keen to start planning the next phase of America's space exploration. Mercury Mark II was designed as an upgraded Mercury program with the objective of researching and solving the unknowns associated with the future lunar program through a slow, methodical approach. It would reprise the ballistic, truncated cone spacecraft. But this time, it would be large enough for two astronauts on board and have more sophisticated systems and capabilities, like the ability to step outside for a spacewalk and reaction controls to change planes in orbit. Preliminary program goals added long duration flights of up to two weeks and pilot-controlled land landings to the list. But events in the first half of 1961 took a huge toll on NASA's planned approach. On January 20th, John F. Kennedy took office. On April 12th, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth, dealing a huge blow to America's idea of its technological superiority. On April 15th, the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs dealt a second blow to the still new Kennedy administration. When Al Shepard launched on the inaugural Mercury mission on May 5th, it didn't quite level the playing field. His 15-minute suborbital arc was a far cry from a full orbit. America needed a win and Kennedy turned to space. I have a video that details this decision right here, but in short, Vice President Lyndon Johnson met with NASA Brass who promised a moon landing by the end of the decade. They said it could even be done by 1967 if personnel and adequate funding were diverted to the program immediately. LBJ passed the recommendation to JFK, who eventually agreed it was the best option. He committed to the lunar landing goal on May 25th, 1961, before a joint session of Congress. America had nine years to land a man on the moon. The new goal gave NASA direction for the foreseeable future. Apollo had been taking shape behind the scenes almost since NASA's inception, and now it was brought to the fore. And in support of the new emphasis on Apollo, the Mercury Mark II program went through a metamorphosis. Mercury Mark II was already meant to support a future lunar program, but now there was a concrete mission and timeframe. The program became, in essence, a bridge to the moon. The program goals were three-fold aims directly related to Apollo, to achieve long-duration flight, to rendezvous and dock two vehicles in orbit using the vehicle's own propulsion system, and to perfect the method of pinpoint landings. Physically, Mercury Mark II, which was also built by McDonnell, was Mercury's larger cousin with some notable changes. It had onboard power and support for two astronauts for up to two weeks, the projected length of a lunar mission. The hatches were larger, designed to open in-flight for easy egress for a spacewalk. Those hatches also featured larger windows to help astronauts sight rendezvous targets. Later missions were scheduled to have crews rendezvous and dock with the U.S. Air Force's Agena to practice the delicate dance of connecting two vehicles in space, as Apollo crews would do around the moon with the command and lunar modules. This meant the spacecraft would be far more maneuverable than Mercury, giving the astronauts a significant role to play compared to their near-passenger status on Mercury. As for the landing, simple though splashdowns were, there were definitely issues. There was the potential that, after a mission, an astronaut could drown. After splashing down from his Liberty Bell 7 flight in July of 1961, the hatch on Gus Grissom's spacecraft opened prematurely. Water rushed in, leaving Grissom to struggle his way out of the rapidly flooding capsule. Things got worse when the recovery helicopter arrived. It fought to save the spacecraft for minutes, unaware that Grissom was close to drowning in the choppy waves from the rotor wash. The water-logged capsule was so heavy, the helicopter's landing gear was actually pulled into the ocean, dipping dangerously low over Grissom. He was finally pulled out of the water, and his helmet was found floating inches away from a 10-foot shark. After Scott Carpenter's Aurora 7 flight in 1962, he fired his retro rockets late and landed more than 250 miles off-course. He exited the spacecraft and waited for recovery crews for nearly an hour in his emergency lifeboat, and was lucky he didn't need to use the shark repellent he had on board. Another issue was cost, both monetary and in manpower. The recovery contingent on hand, waiting to pull John Glenn out of the ocean after his Friendship 7 flight in 1962, comprised 24 ships spread out between multiple landing zones, as well as a number of U.S. Air Force planes flying in the area to help visually locate the descending spacecraft. There were also specialized crews on hand. Navy SEAL is ready to jump into the water to help stabilize the spacecraft if need be. Not only did the sizeable recovery force have to train for their role in the flight, they deployed before every launch attempt. In Glenn's case, his launch came on the 11th attempt, meaning recovery crews had been in position 10 times before the mission actually flew. Wally Shiraz's Sigma 7 flight in 1962 is the most extreme example. His mission had 27 Navy ships spread out between all three recovery zones. All in all, every mission meant thousands of men spent months practicing the recovery of one man from the ocean, which is especially nuts when you consider the Mercury astronauts were brilliantly accomplished pilots who could probably land anything that was airborne. A self-sufficient landing method would reduce both the cost and complexity of this final mission stage. Splashdowns also had mechanical ramifications owing to the exposure to saltwater. It corroded the metal, putting onboard data at risk of being lost or damaged. The single-use ablative heat shield also did some damage to the spacecraft's exterior, which, combined with the corrosion, meant there was next to no chance to refurbish a spacecraft for a second launch. Though the ballistic capsules weren't meant to be reused, bringing them down in a way that promoted refurbishment would at least be a first step towards reusability in space, which in turn saves cost. Not only were there ample reasons to move away from Splashdowns, the Mercury Mark II had one big design change that opened the potential for a new landing system, its launch escape system. In Mercury, a small rocket-powered launch escape tower sat atop the spacecraft to pull it free of the launch vehicle if something went wrong early in the mission. This new spacecraft eschewed this method in favor of airplane-inspired ejection seats, which the commander engaged with a D-ring under his seat. The ejection seat was lighter than the launch escape tower, and that meant Mercury Mark II had some wiggle room in terms of mass to add a more complicated landing system. Another factor in the push away from Splashdowns was the astronaut's preference of not being plucked out of the ocean like wet rats. Because NASA already had an astronaut corps when bringing this new program to fruition, the men flying it had a chance to have their voices heard during the process, ensuring it was truly a pilot's spacecraft. Gus Grissom ended up working on organizing the spacecraft elements around the pilot, and one of his main concerns was visibility for rendezvous. To test the proposed half-moon-shaped windows, he blacked out the canopy of an aircraft safe for a hole in the same shape and size as McDonnell designers wanted for the Mercury Mark II. After managing to fly with that window shape and size, he okayed it for the spacecraft. The final configuration gave both astronauts a pilot-approved view, and with the spacecraft on its side, they were seated as though in a cockpit, the perfect position to pilot the spacecraft to a runway landing. With a truly pilotable layout in the spacecraft, NASA considered a number of different landing systems. One option was to use a parachute for a slow fall to Earth, decelerating the spacecraft with retro rockets right before touchdown, just like what the Soy used as today. But the system added too much weight. Not to mention, some argued that psychologically, parachutes were usually an emergency safety measure, not something astronauts wanted to rely on as their primary land-landing system. Another option was a parasail, a sort of maneuverable parachute. The astronaut would be able to maneuver just enough to avoid big objects during his final descent, but it was really a slightly controlled fall. NASA would still need to set up various landing zones with support crews to help if, say, the sail dragged the spacecraft along on a windy day, or the hot metal lit a dry area on fire. There was some discussion about modifying the spacecraft to behave like a lifting body, a wingless vehicle that, by virtue of its aerodynamics, lands like an unpowered airplane. But that was such a significant redesign that the idea never got very far. Then there was the regalo wing. By this point, more research had honed the design into a deployable, inflatable delta wing supported by a collapsible structural frame. The wing offered enough maneuverability to negate the need for a large landing area. A runway with regular support crew would be more than enough. It was also a lightweight option that could be easily incorporated into the existing spacecraft design. The only external modification needed would be landing skids. One of the strongest proponents for the regalo wing was Jim Chamberlain, the Canadian-born ex-adro-aero engineer who, in 1961, was head of the Mercury Mark II program. He not only liked the regalo wing technically, he saw it as a potential PR benefit. Because of its similarity to an aircraft, he thought it would be a good way to show tax-paying Americans who were funding the space program, that NASA engineers were doing something better than the Russians. After weighing the options, the paraglider emerged as the frontrunner with splashdowns retained as a backup method. The first step in bringing this new landing system to life was finding someone to build it. NASA awarded three contractors, Goodyear Aircraft Corporation, North American Aviation, and Ryan Aeronautical, $100,000 each and two months to present its bid. North American emerged victorious, getting a green light from NASA to press forward on the paraglider's development in November of 1961, the same month it was awarded the Apollo Command Module contract. With the contract in place, the program goals were updated to include controlled land landings as the prime recovery mode. In January of 1962, the Mercury Mark II program was given a designation change and called the Gemini program, so called because the two astronauts brought to mind the astronomical twins Caster and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. That same month, development on the paraglider began in earnest. The first were drop and deployment tests. A scale boilerplate spacecraft with a scale glider attached was dropped from a helicopter allowing flight crews, engineers, and astronauts alike to study the mated configuration's behavior in flight. Deployment tests followed a similar procedure. A model was dropped from a helicopter allowing engineers and designers to study how it unfurled and learn how best to pack it on an actual mission. Wind tunnel tests at the Ames Research Laboratory revealed the amount of lift produced by the glider, allowing engineers to understand the aerodynamics of the spacecraft-paraglider combination. After three months of preliminary tests, North American was formally awarded the paraglider contract on April 16, 1962. These preliminary drop, deployment, and wind tunnel tests yielded an equal mix of successes and failures. Most significant among the latter was a failure of the paraglider's integrity. It ripped apart in wind tunnel tests, suggesting it might not be strong enough to be flight worthy. But engineers weren't deterred. The failures had all happened under conditions more extreme than any anticipated on an actual mission, so it wasn't worrying enough to cancel the program. Even though unpredictable weather is just a reality of any point on Earth. These early issues yielded a handful of design alterations that cemented its place in the overall program timeframe. In mid-1962, the formal Germany schedule called for the first unmanned mission to be recovered by splashdown in September of 1963 and the second unmanned test flight to end with a paraglider landing a month later. As of May 24, 1962, the paraglider was expected to land every Germany mission except the first one. Once construction began on full-scale paraglider hardware, astronauts got involved. They needed to learn how to fly it. For a bunch of military test pilots used to jets in high-speed, high-performance planes, piloting the paraglider was an entirely different beast. There were no ailerons or rudder pedals to manipulate control surfaces. Flying the Germany paraglider was all about shifting its center of gravity. During descent, once the glider had been deployed and inflated, it was connected to the spacecraft by five cables. So in essence, the spacecraft was suspended below the glider. The astronaut could control the cables from inside the spacecraft, pulling on a cable to tilt the angle of the wing relative to the spacecraft. That change in angle changed the direction of lift produced by the wing, which in turn moved the spacecraft accordingly, continually moving the spacecraft relative to the wing generated momentum that eventually compounded to give the pilot considerable directional control. The challenge of flying this wholly unconventional vehicle caught the attention of X-15 pilot Milt Thompson. Working at the Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, which is now the Armstrong Flight Research Center, he first learned about the system after attending a briefing from Francis Regallo. It struck a chord with Thompson. In addition to the X-15, he was working on the dinosaur program and was training to fly the first lifting bodies. These wingless vehicles were able to fly by the aerodynamics of their shapes, and since they were blunt, Thompson was keen to see if they couldn't be the right way to land spacecraft from orbit. The paraglider was a far cry from a lifting body, but Thompson saw it as a precursor, a sort of proof of concept for unconventional vehicles that was inexpensive to produce and could yield compelling data in support of future technologies. And he was curious, not to mention excited at the prospect of flying something so new and non-traditional. He asked director of the Flight Research Center, Paul Bickle, if he could build and fly a simple trainer, but his request was denied. Undeterred, Thompson recruited his friend and fellow X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong to build their own test vehicle. Thompson's idea was simple, a sort of kite with a reclining tricycle suspended below it, and since both he and Armstrong were engineering graduates, he figured they could easily make it themselves at home. They started pilfering supplies from Edwards, and eventually, Bickle caught on and relented. He approved a small paraglider program, likely to make sure he didn't lose any of his pilots to a homemade death trap. Seven weeks and $4,280 later, Thompson had a proper program and a vehicle, the Parsev-1, short for paraglider research vehicle. It was exactly the reclining tricycle under a two-lobed sail he'd first dreamed up, so simple that the blueprints had actually been a chalk outline on the floor of the welding shop, but it was given a registration number from the FAA so its airworthiness was certified before it ever left the ground. The fixed wing was the same two-lobed sail as the Gemini regalo wing, but this one, a frame, covered in Irish linen. Control came from an overhead control stick that went in front of the pilot, and it tilted the wing forward and aft or side to side, shifting the center of gravity, just like the Gemini regalo would. Test flights in the Parsev began at the end of January 1962. First were ground tow tests. The Parsev was connected to a tow truck by a cable and towed along the runway until it lifted a few feet off the ground. This gave Thompson a safe chance to get a feel for the controls, and he found it laggy, as though controlled by a wet noodle, but overall okay. He moved on to free flight tests in March, which had the Parsev towed to altitude behind a plane, at which point he could sever the tow line and make the landing from 5 or 600 feet. Thompson described the first free flight as one of the most difficult flights of his career. The weight of the Parsev meant the tow plane took longer to reach altitude, and Thompson was struggling to keep the little vehicle flying level and above the plane to avoid being knocked around by the turbulent air in its wake. The tow line tended to go slack when the plane turned, meaning the Parsev's airspeed varied constantly. Muscling it into control took a lot of strength. Once the tow line was severed, it became a lot easier to fly, and observers watching from the ground said it looked like it was floating smoothly and effortlessly to the runway. Thompson got so caught up in the celebration after his successful landing that he agreed to a second flight right away. Only when he was airborne did he realize he was mentally and physically exhausted. He actually had to use his leg to keep the Parsev steady to save his arm strength for the free flight. With the program seeing early successes, Thompson checked out another pilot, Bruce Peterson, who was also working on lifting bodies so was no stranger to unconventional aircraft. He crashed the Parsev on his first ground tow test, demolishing the vehicle and landing himself in the hospital, though none of his injuries were serious. The fully new Parsev 1A had a few quality of life upgrades, including a more conventional center stick and cables attached to the wing for better maneuverability. All in all, it was much easier to fly than its predecessor. In mid-1962, Thompson became a consultant to NASA on the paraglider program. In the fall, NASA sent astronauts to the Flight Research Center to fly the Parsev. Neil Armstrong had just been selected for the astronaut corps, so Thompson checked him out in the open trainer before his move to Houston since he was likely in line to fly a Gemini mission. Gus Grissom went out to Edwards to fly the Parsev 2, setting an altitude record for the program of 700 feet before making a smooth landing on the runway. Thompson's pet program had proven the paraglider concept, but North American's flight hardware was plagued with problems. There were persistent issues developing the actual wing. In full-scale drop tests, it had a nasty tendency to disintegrate, and attempts to save it with an emergency parachute also failed, destroying test vehicles upon landing. Technical setbacks delayed more tests, raising questions about whether the paraglider would ever be ready in time for Gemini flights. The spacecraft and overall program were moving forward on schedule. This was the one element of the program where NASA was losing confidence. In October of 1962, budget pressures led to the first mention of cutting the paraglider. Increasing issues and waning interests led to a series of revisions from the Gemini program office to the paraglider contract with North American. Jim Chamberlain was determined to salvage the system he loved, but not at the cost of the program's support of Apollo. The revised contract made no reference to man-Gemini flights. The paraglider was effectively downgraded to a research program with only potential inclusion in Gemini. Tests resumed under this new contract in early 1963, but with one major change. Though no one could deny Jim Chamberlain was a brilliant engineer, he wasn't regarded as the most able program manager, and was replaced by Charles Matthews. The paraglider's strongest proponent was no longer in charge. In May of 1963, the decision was made to delay the use of the paraglider until the 10th Gemini mission, but that didn't last. On February 20, 1964, George Miller announced to the Gemini program office that all 12 Gemini flights, two unmanned and 10 manned, would end in Splashdown. As though holding out for miraculous, lassimonic success of the paraglider project, the Gemini program quarterly report ending February 29, 1964, still listed paraglider landings as the mode for the last three missions, but it was a short-lived hope. In April, the paraglider was phased out of the Gemini program altogether. The final swing of the acts came the following month. Representatives from NASA and North American met on May 4, and agreed to continue the test flight portion of the program only. It was dead as far as Gemini was concerned. Charles Matthews officially deleted it on June 12. But it lived on as a research project. In May of 1964, the Office of Advanced Research at the Flight Research Center assumed responsibility for finishing the program. Work continued with the TTV, or test-toe vehicle. The TTV was a full-scale, single-seat Gemini with a pre-inflated wing over top of it. This took inflation and unfurlment out of the equation, allowing engineers and pilots to focus solely on its flight characteristics. Drop tests simulated the final landing after a turn from orbit. The pilot seated inside the spacecraft was lifted to altitude by a helicopter, then dropped, giving him plenty of space to guide it to a runway landing. The first pilot to try his hand in the TTV was Charles Hetzel, who'd flown the Parsev under Milton Thompson's direction to get a handle of this new way of flying. Captive flights in July of 1964, wherein the TTV remained tethered to the helicopter the whole time, went well. But the first free flight became disastrous. As soon as he was dropped from the helicopter, the TTV went into a violent spin. Hetzel managed to eject before the TTV slammed into the desert floor, but he broke ribs in the process. Test pilot Don McCusker took Hetzel's place when the TTV test resumed towards the end of the year. On December 19th, he was towed to altitude in the TTV, the tow line released, and he glided for five minutes before hitting the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base hard. Hard enough that the landing was considered a controlled crash, sending McCusker to the hospital days before Christmas. North American beefed up the vehicle's shock absorbers before tests resumed. McCusker flew the TTV again, as did North American test pilot Jack Swigert. McCusker made eight flights, and Swigert made five, both earning the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' 1965 Octave Channout Award for their contribution to aeronautics. But two pilot successful landings weren't enough to save the paraglider. The Gemini spacecraft's ultimate design included limited lift capability by virtue of its aerodynamics. Its center of gravity was offset such that any roll motion the astronauts made translated into lift, cancelling or reinforcing lift as needed. This gave the crew some control over their landing point, but it wasn't much. About 300 miles downrange and 25 miles side to side of their descent path. But not landing Gemini isn't actually the end of the paraglider's story. North American continued working on the paraglider after 1964, as per the research contract with NASA. And the system had enough proponents that there was some talk of using the paraglider to land Apollo. That idea never really gained traction. The timeline of Apollo was just far too tight. So talk turned instead to using the paraglider as part of the Apollo applications program. The follow-up to Apollo designed to make use of program hardware after the moon landing was achieved. Initial program goals proposed in 1965 included an Earth Orbiting Laboratory and a semi-permanent lunar outpost. These were loftier goals because Apollo applications wasn't expected to have a tight schedule. There was wiggled room to bring in new ideas, including the paraglider. In 1967, NASA issued a contract to North Ventura, the subcontract who had built the sail for North American, to establish the suitability of the para-wing for providing manned spacecraft with a capability for controlled descent in a shallow glide. But the paraglider was canceled from Apollo applications within two years. By 1969, NASA was shifting firmly towards a winged space shuttle concept in pursuit of reusability in space. And the Apollo applications program itself was looking less long-term and more placeholder before that new vehicle flew. Rather than change a system that was working well, NASA decided all missions using Apollo hardware would splash down. The paraglider almost had a life with the U.S. Air Force. The flight research center being at Edwards Air Force Base meant, of course, the military was following the program's development. And it was interested in trying to get it to a flight-worthy state for its own manned space program. The single pilot shuttle-type dinosaur had been canceled on December 10th of 1963 in favor of a military version of Gemini called the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Full video is in the works. This military Gemini was slightly larger and modified to include a laboratory accessible through a hatch in the heat shield. Although announced to the public as the next step in proving man's utility in space, the program was predominantly a reconnaissance platform. The paraglider would make it so this military craft could land at its secure military location at the end of a mission. The Air Force was keen to take advantage of NASA's existing research. But the paraglider's failure with Gemini didn't fill the Air Force with confidence. As technical difficulties led to the glider being phased out of Gemini, the same happened to its inclusion in MOL. The Air Force finally conceded it needed a lot more time and research to turn it into a viable system, and that would increase the cost of the program, which wasn't in great shape anyways. There was only ever one MOL mission, an unmanned test, before the program was canceled. What I always loved about the paraglider is that even though it looks like a weird outlier in the Splashdown era, it made sense. It's reflective of forward thinking about reusability in spaceflight, and reflective of the creative problem solving that was responsible for so many of NASA's early successes. Not to mention, when you look into just how problematic Splashdowns were, you start to understand why this unconventional method was so appealing at the time. But my favorite thing about the regala wing is how great an example it is of how many elements of the space race aren't commonly known. Finding the paraglider when I was working on my master's thesis inspired me to keep digging out these lesser known stories, and so many of them, like this one, are just too good not to share. I hope you guys enjoyed that super deep dive into a wildly obscure technology. There are more deep dives in the works, so definitely subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming videos. If you want to learn more about NASA's backstory, my first book, Breaking the Chains of Gravity, has got you covered. And of course, my new book, Fighting for Space, is out now. It's the dual biography of Jackie Cochran and Jerry Cobb, leading up to the issue of women astronauts in the early 1960s. That's gonna do it for me for today. Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you guys next time. Special shout out to all my Patreons and YouTube members for helping make the vintage space possible.