* Astronomy

Gemini astronauts might have winged their way home if NASA's Paraglider Development Program had succeeded. On April 29, 1963, NASA set a Gemini flight schedule that included "water landing by a parachute, for the first six flights and land landing by paraglider from flight 7 on," said the 1969 NASA document "Project Gemini." The program, nicknamed "wings and wheels," would utilise a wing "packed away like a parachute" that deployed at 60,000 feet in altitude, said astronaut Michael Collins in "Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space" (Grove Press/1988).
Read more