Mercury Mark II sketches/Diagrams?

[OM]

...On the Big Gemini threads, on the family tree for the Gemini program and its proposed offshoots, the "Lucy" of the tree is a drawing of what spawned into Gemini, the "Mercury Mark II". Anyone got any diagrams or sketches of what got this particular ball rolling? How much of a simple embiggening of Mercury was this originally planned to be?

 

[Michel Van]

first it was a bigger Mercury capsule with 2 seat
inclusive escapetower and Retro pack on headshield

the picture show a Mercury Mk II with Spacestation on Atlas-Vega Booster
a proposal from 1959 June 22
(source NASA history page)

1961 February 13 James A. Chamberlin is assigned to McDonnell on Mercury
he change the MK II to Gemini Spacecraft

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I'm just curious here. How was access gained to the aft crew module? Was it by EVA or some kind of flexible interface with the capsule hatch?

Moonbat

EDIT- Wait, I just looked closer at the diagram. There's an inflatable airlock on the the bottom of the module. Okay. In that case, this begs the question: why rotate the capsule anyway?

 

[OM]

Wait, I just looked closer at the diagram. There's an inflatable airlock on the the bottom of the module. Okay. In that case, this begs the question: why rotate the capsule anyway?

...This was before the procedures for rendezvous between two spacecraft were fully understood. The argument is that since the two sections are already joined, just flip the capsule over so the hatch is next to the hull of the aft compartment, and place an inflatable airlock there, and you wouldn't have to risk the crew or the mission doing a transverse docking as Apollo wound up doing with the CM and the LM. In fact, EVA was proven before rendezvous, so even the early MOL-type concepts called for either an inflatable airlock between the capsule and the aft lab and/or a tunnel in between the two as the final Air Farce MOL concept called for.

first it was a bigger Mercury capsule with 2 seat
inclusive escapetower and Retro pack on headshield

the picture show a Mercury Mk II with Spacestation on Atlas-Vega Booster
a proposal from 1959 June 22
(source NASA history page)

1961 February 13 James A. Chamberlin is assigned to McDonnell on Mercury
he change the MK II to Gemini Spacecraft

...This is all known. The diagram you supplied is the first I've seen of the Mark II concept save for the one in the Gemini Family Tree diagram I referenced. Note the positioning of the crew in relation to what was actually implemented in Gemini, which had them directly parallel to one another since there was no need for the ejection seats with an escape tower attached. The angling of the seats in the actual Gemini design was to facilitate the potential use of the ejection seats by having them perpendicular to the hatches.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Norair concept of a modified two man Mercury.

 

[archipeppe]

...On the Big Gemini threads, on the family tree for the Gemini program and its proposed offshoots, the "Lucy" of the tree is a drawing of what spawned into Gemini, the "Mercury Mark II". Anyone got any diagrams or sketches of what got this particular ball rolling? How much of a simple embiggening of Mercury was this originally planned to be?

Something like this??

 

[carmelo]

Norair concept of a modified two man Mercury.

Incredible!!
So Apollo is not more old of Gemini!!
This concept is for sure developed in late 1959 (The magazine is February 1960).
Apollo in 1959 was oly a name without shape,Mercury Mark-II (Gemini) is is already there!

A question.
In the Norair concept,
the acces for laboratory is in the "nose" of Mercury Mark-II (Apollo-Skylab style)?

 

[archipeppe]

Norair concept of a modified two man Mercury.

Incredible!!
So Apollo is not more old of Gemini!!
This concept is for sure developed in late 1959 (The magazine is February 1960).
Apollo in 1959 was oly a name without shape,Mercury Mark-II (Gemini) is is already there!

A question.
In the Norair concept,
the acces for laboratory is in the "nose" of Mercury Mark-II (Apollo-Skylab style)?

Carmelo, I don't guess so.

I think it's a North American idea, built around an enlarged "Mercury Design C" capsule, in order "to sell" its own space station concept, nothing to do with the actual Gemini. It is true that some proposal for changing orbit Mercury was also came up in 1959 but according to NASA SP-4002 "A Gemini Chronology" the real first draft of two-man Mercury derived is within the "Guidelines for a Program for Manned and Unmanned Orbital Operations," of 22 May 1961 (just after Shepard's flight).

Anyway the first "official" mention of a Two-man Mercury Mk II spacecraft (today regarded as direct "ancestor" of the actual Gemini) will came up only in July 1961 with the McDonnell Report, "Manned Spacecraft - Advanced Versions, part 4, "Two Man MK II Spacecraft," unpaged report, dated back 27-28 July 1961.

So even if somehow prophetic such North American proposal nothing have to do with the real Gemini.
Interestingly the service module showed in the caption seems to resemble the future Apollo SM, look better at such image: cylindrical shape, cylindrical tanks arranged around a central engine and four quad of thruster. There is enough to see a forerunner of the actual Apollo SM.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Convair Astronautics Report AZP-100 for a 2 man space station has a 2 seat Mercury style/modified? capsule.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Convair Astronautics Report AE-60-228 July 1960
TASSEL Three Astronaut Space System Experimental Laboratory features a 3 place Mercury type capsule with nose docking/airlock.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Funnily enough the station was also renamed MARS Manned Astronautical Research Station.

 

[RobSchorry]

The TASSEL project: "TASSEL Space Laboratory (Three Astronaut Space System Experimental Laboratory) was a proposal for an interim space station to be launched after the Mercury program and before a "permanent manned space station." About the same time they were also proposing using an in-orbit Atlas hull for the OUTPOST station. TASSEL would have also had artificial-G. Convair proposal from 1960. Note that Krafft Ehricke was the project leader (no surprise).

The three crew would fly what appears to be a "Big Mercury" type of capsule on the end of the space station, with both a side access hatch and a nose hatch for docking. The space station looks similar in size to the crew quarters of the later MOL. An advantage of this design, that was mentioned in the report, was that it eliminated the necessity for rendezvous (which had not yet been developed).

Here is a working link to the Convair TASSEL document: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0851662.pdf

Another "what if" on an alternate path of US spaceflight.

 

[Barrington Bond]

Mercury Mark 2 from various sources which all show a similar hatch different to Gemini.

6th illustration is my attempt to delete the interior to show the hatches more clearly.

Regards,
Barry Hinchliffe

 

[Barrington Bond]

Other illustrations some of which show large windows.