Even before Jughead Jones had been launched on the final Mercury Flight, Faith 7, NASA had already begun working on its next generation of spacecraft. McDonnell Aircraft, the same company that had built the Mercury capsules, was contracted to build the Gemini capsule. The launch vehicle was to be a modified Titan II, an intercontinental missile built by Martin Marietta. The Gemini crew capsule was essentially an enlarged version of the Mercury capsule and was referred to as the Re-entry Module. There was also what was called the Adapter Module, which contained the retrorockets, electrical power, propulsion systems, consumables etc.
The Americans had also begun work on a separate project to go to the moon dubbed Project Apollo. However they knew that this program would take much longer to develop and Gemini and Gemini was an interim program to test various aspects of space flight like rendezvous and docking, extra-vehicular activity (EVA) as well as various types of equipment.
However after the final Mercury flight the Gemini spacecraft was still in the development process and wouldn't be ready to fly with astronauts onboard for nearly two years. In the meantime the Soviets continued their flights launch and in June of 1963 they launched Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 one after another much like they had with Vostok 3 and 4. Onboard Vostok 6 was Valentina Tereshkova, the first Soviet Woman in space. However at this point the Americans were feeling very comfortable about their position in the Space Race. The Soviets were continuing to use the same equipment while the Americans were developing newer and better equipment.
With their space program being expanded in a major way, and with Reggie Mantle leaving to take up a career in politics, and Adam Chisholm joining the Navy's SEALAB program, the Americans realized that they would need even more astronauts than they currently had. They opened up selections and chose another fourteen astronauts to expand the Astronaut Corps, announcing the newest members in October of 1963. The new group consisted of seven men and seven women.
The Air Force provided the largest portion of the new candidates with six of them. They were Raoul Hopper, 33 of Haverford, Pennsylvania; Fletcher Foley, 33 of Columbus, Ohio; Alan Mayberry, 32 who had been born in Rome, Italy and grown up at military bases across American and world; Cedric van Hauten, 31 of Dayton, Ohio. Also from the Air Force Women's Auxiliary Corps were: Trula Twyst, 30 of La Mesa, California; and Cricket O'Dell, 28 of Neptune Township, New Jersey.
The next largest group was from the Navy with three astronauts. They were: Ambrose Pipps, 34 of Seattle, Washington; Eddie Turner, 28 of Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Avalon Priss, 31 of Wheeler, Texas.
There were three female civilian pilots as well. They were: Josie McCoy a test pilot for Ling-Temco-Vought, 31 of San Antonio Texas; Melody Valentine a test pilot for Boeing, 29 of Bellwood, Illinois; and Katy Keene a test pilot for Martin Marietta, 33 of Montclair, New Jersey.
Rounding out the group were two Marines. First was Wilbur Wilkins, 31 of Mobile, Alabama; and Priscilla Periwinkle, who was the first female Marine helicopter pilot, 31 of Creston, Iowa.
The Americans successfully launched a test flight of the Gemini spacecraft, named Gemini 1 on April 8, 1964. The capsule had been designed specifically for an unmanned flight. In place of certain equipment like life support systems was simply ballast and instead of the seats there was equipment that measured things like vibration, pressure and acceleration to test the structural loads during flight. There were a few minor problems; the Titan II had put the capsule into a slightly higher orbit than expected. There had also been a brief communications black out when the first stage of the Titan II and the second stage had started up. This was later attributed to the charged ions caused by the start-up of the second stage creating a similar condition to that during re-entry when the capsule also experienced a communication blackout.
