A detailed, yet highly readable book, On the Shoulders of Titans should be the starting point for all who are interested in the basic history of the Gemini Program. NASA’s second human spaceflight program, Gemini laid the groundwork for the more ambitious Apollo program which put astronauts on the Moon. This informative and entertaining book had long been out of print and is now available in softcover format. Recommended for students, scholars, journalists, hobbyists, and all who are interested in human spaceflight history.

On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini

Science & Math

Hacker, Barton C.

Grimwood, James M.

Astronomy & Space Science

History Division

War is part of American history. This book examines how military technology both molded and reflected interactions between American military institutions and other American institutions. The growth of engineering and science has reshaped military technology, organization, and practice from the Colonial era to the present day. At the same time, military concerns influenced, and and sometimes channeled, American engineering and scientific development.
American Military Technology chronicles the interactions of technology and science with America's armed forces from colonial times to the end of the 20th century. Each period of the nation's history brought new and influential changes to the interaction of the military and technology.
The book is an excellent springboard for understanding the complex relationship of science, technology, and war in American history.

American Military Technology: The Life Story of a Technology (Greenwood Technographies)

History

Vining, Margaret

Americas

Greenwood

Discusses tolerance and protection standards, and looks at the Los Alamos and Trinity testing sites

The Dragon's Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942-1946

Business & Money

University of California Press

Unforgettable congressional hearings in 1978 revealed that fallout from American nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s had overexposed hundreds of soldiers and other citizens to radiation. Faith in governmental integrity was shaken, and many people have assumed that such overexposure caused great damage. Yet important questions remain—the most controversial being: did the radiation overexposure in fact cause the cancers and birth defects for which it has been blamed? Elements of Controversy is the result of a decade of exhaustive research in AEC documentary records and the full clinical and epidemiological literature on radiation effects. More concerned with uncovering the historical story than with assigning blame, Barton Hacker concludes that every precaution was taken by the AEC to avoid harming test participants or bystanders. And, he points out, the biomedical literature suggests that these precautions worked. Yet top officials in Washington—for whom the success of nuclear weapons was of overriding importance—had asserted that testing involved no risks at all. Discrepancies between unverifiable government claims and the revelations that some actual risk was present explain the origins and angry persistence of the controversies, Hacker argues. The Department of Energy delayed publication of Hacker's study for five years, and while his controversial book is sure to draw objections from both sides of the radiation-hazard debates, it will provide a much-needed guide to understanding their polemics.

Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974

Military

The growth of American engineering and science has affected military technology, organization, and practice from the colonial era to the present day―even as military concerns have influenced, and often funded, domestic engineering programs and scientific development. American Military Technology traces the interplay of technology and science with the armed forces of the United States in terms of what Hacker and Vining view as epochs: 1840–1865, the introduction of modern small arms, steam power, and technology, science, and medicine; 1900–1914, the naval arms race, torpedoes and submarines, and the signal corps and the airplane; and 1965–1971, McNamara's Pentagon, technology in Vietnam, guided missiles, and smart bombs. 
The book is an excellent springboard for understanding the complex relationship of science, technology, and war in American history.

American Military Technology: The Life Story of a Technology

Johns Hopkins University Press

A detailed, yet highly readable book, On the Shoulders of Titans should be the starting point for all who are interested in the basic history of the Gemini Program. NASA’s second human spaceflight program, Gemini laid the groundwork for the more ambitious Apollo program which put astronauts on the Moon.

On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (NASA History Series)

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Gemini was the intermediate manned space flight program between America's first steps into space with Mercury and the amazing and unprecedented accomplishments achieved during the manned lunar expeditions of Apollo. Because of its position between these two other efforts, Gemini is probably less remembered. Still, it more than had its place in man's progress into this new frontier. Gemini accomplishments were manyfold. They included many firsts: first astronaut-controlled maneuvering in space; first rendezvous in space of one spacecraft with another; first docking of one spacecraft with a propulsive stage and use of that stage to transfer man to high altitude; first traverse of man into the Earth's radiation belts; first extended manned flights of a week or more in duration; first extended stays of man outside his spacecraft; first controlled reentry and precision landing; and many more. These achievements were significant in ways one cannot truly evaluate even today, but two things stand out: (1) it was the time when America caught up and surpassed the Soviet Union in manned space flight, and (2) these demonstrations of capability were an absolute prerequisite to the phenomenal Apollo accomplishments then yet to come. Project Gemini is now little remembered, having vanished into that special limbo reserved for the successful intermediate steps in a fast-moving technological advance. Conceived and approved in 1961, the second major project in the American manned space flight program carried men into orbit in 1965 and 1966. Gemini thus kept Americans in space between the path-breaking but limited Earth-orbital missions of Project Mercury and the far more ambitious Project Apollo, which climaxed in 1969 when two men first set foot on the Moon. This book is a detailed history of the failures and victories of the Gemini program.

On The Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (The NASA History Series)

Administration, National Aeronautics and Space

World

Project Gemini was the United States' second manned space flight program, a bridge between the pioneering achievement of Project Mercury and the yet-to-be realized lunar mission of Project Apollo. This Chronology, a step in preparing the history of Project Gemini, marks the completion of the first phase of the study of the Gemini program and lays the foundation for the narrative history that will follow. What we have done must stand as an independent work in its own right. But at the same time, some of its characteristics- in particular, what it contains and what it omits- can be properly justified only in terms of the larger whole of which it is a part. We have deliberately focused this Chronology very narrowly, excluding much material of undoubted relevance to the background of events, the context of decision, and to other matters that might be characterized as the external environment of Project Gemini. In part this is the inevitable result of a chronological format, which leaves little scope for explaining and interpreting events. Equally important, however, was our decision to reserve for the less restricted confines of a subsequent narrative history our confrontation with the subtle problems of interpretation and causation, of controversy and cooperation, of individual achievements and failures in the Gemini program. Several major features of this text grew directly from this decision. Our orientation throughout has been primarily institutional. Organizations rather than individuals are ordinarily the actors in events as we describe them. The point of view embodied in most of the entries is that of Gemini Program Office (the Manned Spacecraft Center element created to carry through the Gemini program) and of major Gemini contractors. The events that we have been most concerned to elucidate are technological - the engineering and developmental work which transformed the concepts and objectives of the Gemini program from idea to reality. This Chronology is fully documented, with sources for each entry in the text cited immediately after the entry. Our greatest, though not exclusive, reliance has been on primary sources. Of these, perhaps the most widely useful have been the various recurring reports issued by both NASA and contractor organizations. Foremost among these are the Project Gemini Quarterly Status Reports, the Manned Spacecraft Center weekly and monthly activity reports and contractor monthly progress reports. Another extremely useful class of materials comprises nonrecurring reports and documents, such as working papers, technical reports, statements of work, mission reports and analyses, familiarization manuals, and final reports. The third major body of sources consists of the records of various NASA organizations, particularly Gemini Program Office records. These include notes, minutes and abstracts of meetings, official correspondence, telegrams, memorandums, reading files, and the like. The most significant achievements of Gemini involved precision maneuvering in orbit and a major extension of the duration of manned space flights. These included the first rendezvous in orbit of one spacecraft with another and the docking of two spacecraft together. The docking operation allowed the use of a large propulsion system to carry men to greater heights above Earth than had been previously possible, thereby enabling the astronauts to view and photograph Earth over extensive areas.

Project Gemini: Technology and Operations: A Chronology (The NASA History Series)

Vorzimmer, Peter J

West Point In The Making Of America

Over 50 biographies of West Point graduates, including Robert E. Lee, are highlighted in this companion book to the exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

West Point in the Making of America

Hydra