To me, this new book on the Gemini program is like a blast of nostalgia from the sixties. I was a child during the era of Project Mercury and Project Gemini and a teen when some of the crew of Apollo 11 set foot on the moon in 1969. When the astronauts partook of their science fiction-like space adventures, my family’s black and white TV would invariably be tuned in. The space race was a bright spot, a majestic evocation of a sense of wonder, in the otherwise gloomy, paranoia-ridden Cold War era.

Gemini focuses on the middle act of the trio of programs whose ultimate goal was John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade of the sixties, although a third of the book, well over a hundred pages, is taken up with introductory material on the Mercury program. I’m not really sure why “the untold story” is a part of the subtitle, because the story is familiar to many through multiple books, films, and mini-series. Still, it serves as an effective reminder of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of nascent NASA and its push to get astronauts to the moon before the Soviets.

The Soviets scored early victories in sending out Sputnik 1, the first orbiting satellite; Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the Earth; and Gherman Titov, the first person to spend over a day in space. Thereafter, the United States was forced to play catch-up. In the Mercury program, single astronauts went up in tiny, rudimentary spaceships; however, the Gemini spaceships were built to carry two. Their purpose was to practice maneuvering and docking procedures as a prelude to the moon-bound Apollo program. Of course, as in most complex undertakings, there were many snags, impediments, delays, dangers, and even a fair share of disasters. Still, with the backing of a U.S. government determined to outdo the Soviets, NASA forged ahead. In fact, if there had not been a Cold War, it’s possible that it would have taken decades longer to reach the moon. The propaganda value of getting there first provided the impetus for the effort.

This book serves mainly as a summary of the Mercury and Gemini programs rather than a comprehensive look at them. Any one of the Gemini missions, examined in depth, would provide material for a fascinating and exciting book-length story of its own. This is obviously not Kluger’s intention, though; instead, he gives us an overview of NASA’s early years, culminating, in the epilogue, with the Apollo 11 moon landing and the remaining Apollo moon flights that followed.

As I write this, the members of the crew of the Artemis II spacecraft are preparing for the first lunar flyby since 1972. If all goes well, this will be accomplished soon, in March of 2026. Space travel has long captivated the imaginations of us Earth-dwellers. Gemini serves as a reminder that the exploration of space is not a new idea, but rather one with a history of valiant efforts, of setbacks, defeats, and victories. Sometimes it’s invigorating to get our minds off the current tangled sociological and political mess, gaze up at the stars, and dream of worlds yet to be explored.