If Mercury asked whether man could survive in space, Gemini asked whether he could work there. Formally conceived on January 3, 1962, Project Gemini was the critical engineering bridge between Mercury's single-seat capsules and Apollo's three-man lunar voyages. Its objectives were precise and demanding: demonstrate long-duration flight of up to two weeks; perfect rendezvous and docking with another orbiting vehicle; execute extravehicular activity; master controlled reentry to a precise landing point; and build the operational proficiency of flight and ground crews. The spacecraft, built by McDonnell Aircraft, weighed 8,490 pounds and carried two astronauts in a cabin often compared to the front seats of a Volkswagen Beetle. It introduced the Orbital Attitude and Maneuvering System (OAMS), allowing astronauts to change orbits—a necessity for rendezvous and for a lunar module lifting off the Moon to meet its command module. Over twenty months from March 1965 to November 1966, NASA launched two uncrewed and ten crewed Gemini missions, plus seven Agena target vehicles. The program logged 970 hours of spaceflight, proved that Americans could live and labor in the void, and transformed the raw courage of Mercury into the practiced skill that would reach the lunar surface.