By the fall of 1967, the apparatus for controlling manned space flight—the MOCR, its support network, the mission rules, the skills—had been evolving for eight years. Mercury had been elementary school, teaching the neophyte flight control team the rudiments, and occasionally showing by harrowing example how much remained to be learned. Gemini, consisting of ten manned flights with two-man crews during the period from March 1965 through November 1966, had given the controllers a chance to become proficient in advanced concepts such as rendezvous, extended flight, and extra-vehicular activity.
