Review of Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story by Jeffrey Kluger

Space: the final frontier. Except it’s actually many frontiers. The history of spaceflight is fascinating precisely because of its incremental nature. Humanity didn’t suddenly venture forth into deep space, and obviously we have a ways to go yet. So I love reading about this history, and the Gemini program is something with which I was not very familiar. In Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story, Jeffrey Kluger chronicles this program. I received an eARC from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in return for a review.

The book is a fairly straightforward, chronological account of the Gemini program, bookended by brief summaries of Mercury and Apollo. Kluger splits his focus between the people and the products. He provides brief biographies on each of the astronauts as well as some of the key behind-the-scenes figures, like Chris Kraft. Alongside, he explains the development of key technologies, such as the Titan and Atlas boosters, ejection seats, etc. He also compares the program to the simultaneous progress made by the USSR, thereby situating Gemini within the larger context of the space race.

Kluger somehow manages to move us through the years in a way that sustains interest and avoids getting too technical. I won’t pretend I was enraptured for the entire time. Nevertheless, it was really fascinating to see the series of missions presented less as an overdramatized story and more as stepping stones. Kluger doesn’t lionize the people involved, and he doesn’t sugarcoat anything either—especially when it comes to mistakes made. You really get a sense of how much hard work went into this project, yet also how much still came down to luck.

Indeed, this book is at its best when Kluger explains how engineers or the astronauts themselves overcame setbacks and solved problems you might not even realize would be problems in microgravity. When contractors failed to deliver, people at NASA improvised a new mission schedule. When astronauts decided their flight suits were too hot, they silently protested until flight control reached a compromise with them. These are the little moments of history that might not always make it into the big-budget spectacle movies yet are fascinating regardless!

The details of the various astronauts kind of blur together. Part of this is just the sameness of their backgrounds—Kluger does his best to distinguish between their personalities, accomplishments, origin stories, etc. Yet there is only so much you can say about “white man joined the military and wanted to fly planes and now he’s going to space.” Obviously certain names, Jim Lovell’s in particular, feature more prominently. At the end of the day, however, I can’t say I came away from this book with a better understanding of the people involved in these missions.

Kluger also shies away from discussions or revisionism of politics at NASA. No discussion of the Lavender Scare, for instance, which in recent years coloured the launch of the otherwise incredible JWST. While some might argue that Kluger is simply attempting to stick to the facts, he doesn’t mind editorializing when it comes to, say, Lyndon Johnson’s fixation with the space program. Yet, aside from the obvious need to discuss Kennedy’s assassination, there is precious little mention of the persecution of communists, of the Vietnam War, etc. So in this respect, I am slightly disappointed that Gemini is so narrow it fails to address the shortcomings of NASA during this time or indeed to engage on any meaningful level with the social and political environment of the late 1960s.

If you’re looking for something that discusses the technology of Gemini and the incredible innovations of this slice of the American space program, then I highly recommend this book. On the other hand, if you want something with wider scope when it comes to the social and political context of this program and spaceflight in general, I don’t think Gemini delivers on that front.