Category: Nonfiction
Reviewed by: John Vester
Title: Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story
Author: Jeffrey Kluger
Format: Hardcover/Kindle
Pages: 304
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Date: November 2025
Retail price: $32.00/$16.99
ISBN: 978-1250323002
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Gemini, by Jeffrey Kluger, is a page-turner of a U.S. space history book. The Gemini program was a significant and exciting phase of the U.S. push to the Moon, but one that is sorely underappreciated. As someone who, as a young boy, got up early or stayed up late to watch on TV every Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launch, I must agree with Kluger. Neither the cautious Mercury flights nor the mature Apollo missions (and ultimate successes) held the compelling fascination of Gemini’s drama and goal to operate in the new environment of space.
Kluger states his intention to set the record straight, and he has succeeded. This very readable book is dense with facts and details while retaining a pace and style that others have described as “cinematic.”
The author’s recounting of the space program in general, and Gemini in particular, brings out many fascinating items, both detailed and broad background, that even aficionados may have missed.
One exciting story involves the Rogallo wing, a planned replacement for traditional parachutes for capsule landings at sea. It promised to enable astronaut control and allow the capsule to perform pinpoint landings anywhere on land. After frustrating tests, and after Francis and Gertrude Rogallo were off the project, even Neil Armstrong, before becoming an astronaut, believed in it and tried to improve the design. But the Rogallo wing never fulfilled its promise in testing, so the idea was scrapped in favor of the old reliable parachutes.
Another story, among many, follows the SOPE (simulated off-the-pad ejection) program to test ejection seats, allowing astronauts to escape from an exploding rocket. Other stories involved problems developing the fuel cells and issues with the Agena target vehicle. One might get the impression that Gemini was a doomed, problem-plagued program, but the opposite was true. Project Gemini launched ten times in twenty months, a period during which the Russians launched no men (or women) into space. All sixteen Gemini astronauts returned safely to Earth, despite some close calls.
Thanks to Gemini, NASA astronauts learned to change their orbit, rendezvous and dock, and perform spacewalks. This caused the U.S. space program to leapfrog the Russians. Gemini restored American pride and optimism about the country’s position in the space race and prepared Apollo and mission control for the landings on the Moon.
Yet the innovative and often exciting story of the “two-manned Mercury” is almost totally overshadowed by Mercury, America’s first step into space, and Apollo’s first small steps on the Moon. But Gemini, our steppingstone to the Moon, is what made possible America’s space triumph within President Kennedy’s announced time frame.
Jeffrey Kluger has now shone a light into the shadows cast by Mercury and Apollo, and he’s done it masterfully. Read Gemini for the information or for the pleasure of Kluger’s storytelling. But read it you should.
© 2025 John Vester
