page_title: Gemini 7
section_title: Flight
hierarchical_section_title: Gemini 7 / Flight
caption_attribution_description: English: A bank of clouds over the western Pacific Ocean was photographed by Astronaut Frank Borman and James A. Lovell during the Gemini 7 mission. In the background the moon can be seen.
context_page_description: Gemini 7 was a 1965 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the fifth crewed Gemini flight, the thirteenth crewed American spaceflight, and the twenty-first crewed spaceflight including Soviet flights and X-15 flights above the Kármán line. The crew of Frank Borman and Jim Lovell spent nearly 14 days in space, making a total of 206 orbits. Their spacecraft was the passive target for the first crewed space rendezvous performed by the crew of Gemini 6A.
context_section_description: Launch went without any problems and all systems on the Titan II performed nominally. Some slight pogo vibrations were detected starting at T+110 seconds into launch, but unlike with Gemini 5 where the astronauts experienced momentary vision and speech problems, Borman reported only feeling a very light shaking sensation and Lovell nothing. After separating from the spent rocket stage, they turned the spacecraft around and proceeded to station keep with the rocket stage, a maneuver first tried on Gemini 4. The Gemini 4 attempt was unsuccessful, due to the limited knowledge at the time of the complex orbital mechanics involved. Gemini 7 flew in formation with its upper stage for fifteen minutes, at which time Borman stopped because he felt too much fuel was being consumed, and the stage was moving erratically as it vented its own remaining fuel.
  They spent the rest of their first day in space doing some experiments and eating their first meal. Their sleep periods were scheduled at the same time unlike previous missions and they were able to get some sleep. The next morning they were awoken at 9:06 am EST and given the morning's news, which included the collision of two airliners over New York. For the first time during a flight, one of the crew was allowed to take off his suit. Borman and Lovell had planned to both take them off two days into the mission, when they were satisfied that the environmental system was working properly. The NASA managers did not like this idea, and said that at least one crew member had to be wearing a suit at all times. Borman wore his suit and sweated profusely, but agreed to let Lovell stay out of his suit, as Lovell was the larger of the two, and it required a lot of effort to get in and out of a suit in little more space than the front seat of a car.
  Later, the flight controllers ordered Lovell to don his suit, and Borman to get out of his. This was because the doctors wanted to see the effects of being suited and unsuited on the astronauts. At 148 hours into the flight, Borman got his chance to cool down. Finally, the NASA managers decided that there was little benefit in having the crew members suited, and so relented after a couple of days. Going suitless greatly improved the astronauts' comfort and mobility inside the cramped spacecraft.
  The lessons learned from Gemini 5 allowed Lovell and Borman to have improved personal hygiene during their mission. They showered with an anti-dandruff shampoo for two weeks prior to the flight to curb the problems their predecessors had experienced with skin flakes accumulating inside the spacecraft and removal of the pressure suits in-flight also helped keep their skin more moist and less prone to drying out. They were also supplied with sanitation wipes which proved highly beneficial in keeping clean. Odors were not a problem except when they opened the storage bins where waste was stowed.
  In their postflight debriefing, Borman and Lovell noted that the food rations had been generally of good quality, but they strongly disliked the freeze-dried protein bites and advised against them being included on future missions. They also suggested that more breakfast items would have been nice, to avoid including bite-sized food that could easily produce crumbs that get loose in the cabin, and improving the packaging of some items. Because of the lengthy mission, Gemini 7 had a significantly larger supply of food than previous flights, and the astronauts often found it difficult to remove the tightly-packed food containers, some of which had also not been stowed in the correct order for the day of the flight they were intended to be eaten.
  As part of the in-flight medical experiments, the crew were required to collect and save some of their bodily wastes for post-flight analysis, a task they described as less-than-enjoyable. The urine collection device proved particularly difficult and unpleasant to use, especially because of its habit of leaking urine, which happened several times during the flight. Borman suggested afterwards that a tube and valve mechanism 
caption: Moon and clouds over the Western Pacific as seen from Gemini 7
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