Giving Gemini Its Due: Jeffrey Kluger Reclaims NASA’s 'Forgotten' Program in New Book

Giving Gemini Its Due: Jeffrey Kluger Reclaims NASA’s 'Forgotten' Program

Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story (St. Martin's Press, Nov. 11, 2025) is Jeffrey Kluger’s long-overdue examination of NASA’s Project Gemini — the intense, high-stakes program that taught the United States the skills that made Apollo’s Moon landings possible.

About the book

Kluger, a New York City–based space historian, journalist and New York Times bestselling author who co-wrote Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, brings fresh research and vivid narrative to the ten crewed Gemini flights launched in 1965–66. The book explores the technical breakthroughs, the human drama and the ground teams behind each mission, aiming to restore Gemini’s place in space history.

Why Gemini mattered

Project Gemini was the bridge between early human spaceflight and the lunar missions. Over 20 months and just ten flights, NASA tested crucial capabilities: extravehicular activity (EVAs), orbital rendezvous and docking, long-duration crewed missions, and precise coordination between spacecraft. Those skills were essential to the lunar-orbit rendezvous technique that enabled Apollo astronauts to land on the Moon and return safely.

Kluger says the program was often overlooked: "It was the middle sibling of the space program — not the first to put humans in space, nor the mission to the Moon, but the essential bridge between them."

Triumphs and peril

The book recounts dramatic firsts and narrow escapes. While Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person ever to walk in space, Gemini 4’s Ed White became the first American to perform an EVA. Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 demonstrated true orbital rendezvous, proving one spacecraft could track and station-keep with another at close range. Gemini 8 performed the first docking with an Agena target vehicle — a milestone directly relevant to Apollo.

Kluger also recounts harrowing incidents: the near-fatal spinout on Gemini 8 that imperiled Neil Armstrong and David Scott; the hazardous spacewalk on Gemini 9 that nearly claimed Gene Cernan’s life; and the 1966 aircraft crash that killed astronauts Charles Bassett and Elliot See. The book balances these dangers with achievements such as Gemini 5’s eight-day mission, Gemini 7’s 14-day endurance flight with Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, and Gemini 11’s record-setting altitude of 856 miles (1,378 km), a notable Earth-orbit milestone.

Tempo, teamwork and legacy

One striking theme Kluger emphasizes is the program’s tempo: roughly every eight weeks a new Titan rocket, a fresh Gemini capsule and a new crew were prepared, launched and recovered. That cadence demanded exceptional coordination among engineers, technicians and flight controllers. Individual contributors — including Buzz Aldrin, known for his expertise in orbital rendezvous after earning a Ph.D. in orbital mechanics from MIT — played key roles in shaping techniques still used in space operations today.

Kluger presents Gemini as an intense period of rapid learning in which many unknowns became known in a short time. By documenting the program’s successes, failures and personalities, the book argues that Gemini’s lessons were decisive in enabling six crewed lunar landings during the Apollo era.

Where and when

Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story will be available from St. Martin's Press and major booksellers on Nov. 11, 2025.

Note: Some modern private missions have revisited orbital-altitude records; where record claims exist, Kluger and contemporary sources are cited with careful wording in the book.