European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 30, 1965, Darmstadt, Hesse                                August 1965 the stars and stripes 3 now leads in manned flight mileage Welcome Crew hands blared and cameras clicked before Gordon Cooper let and Char Sci Conrad went below Tor physical Check aboard Lake Houston United suites now leads the soviet Union try More than 131 hours and several million Miles in the noun net exploration of this wus the Point space program personnel Hud scram bled to reach amid Many a Dis appointing since the morning of april when russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first Man to make a cosmic the Seminole flight of gemini 5 astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Pete con Rad stripped the russians of practically every major endur Ance record for manned space when Cooper and Conrad the total for Man hours 111 space reached 641 33 hours More than the 507 16 minutes logged by 11 orbiting the slender Champ welcomes the champions crewmen cheer gemini pair aboard toss Lake Cham Plain at sea up the gemini 5 astronauts came aboard the aircraft Carrier Lake Cham Plain sunday to the cheers of the Crew and the blaring of the ships their spacecraft came aboard a Little later to the creak ing of a Champ welcomes the Cham read a sign on the port Able Steps pushed up to the helicopter so Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad could step to the flight deck and walk on some thing solid for the first time in eight 0 the Bobbing capsule that was being watched by three avy the swimmers attached a flotation Collar to the in seaworthy Craft to keep it when Cooper and Conrad were safely in the flight director Christopher Kraft Iii ils traditional Victory Cigar in the cml no control Center Here and mss cd out cigars to others in Broad grins split their they looked Grimy in their Sil very White space they Hud their helmets off and they wore Blu tinted sunglasses against the Bright scraggly beards their beards were Cooper told the helicopter Crew that new them from their Bob Bing capsule that the helicopter should have lowered some deodorant the astronauts jumped for and Arm in Arm they walked straight and proud Down a red carpet to an elevator that took them to sick Bay below deck for seven hours of medical first report Happy and if they could so again after some sleep and a they a space Agency official the Crew had rigged two cuts with Gold coloured upholstery atop a flight deck tractor in Case the eight Days aloft had left the astronauts too weak to but they walked the 50 Yards by themselves from the hell cop ice to the it was a Homecoming of sorts for Conrad he made his first Jet Carrier Landing in june aboard the Lake Champlain and served aboard the ship for a time in fighter so Force lieu tenant and a Navy lieutenant saluted the Flag As soon As they touched the the destroyer Dupont steamed in mini the Champlain reached the capsule and hauled it aboard at the United states on ils sides and the Small Flag painted on its dark Metal skin were clearly the heat shield that protected astronauts from the degree Furnace of reentry was splattered with a whitish stain and plainly showed signs of the heat it to capsule was in Good shape on the clean officials the astronauts had been Good in sick Cooper and Conrad kidded each other about their beards and said they were glad to be Able to scratch and breathe some fresh Ulm they had a bet in space As to who would grow the better unbiased onlookers Fig ured Cooper his Beard was dark and flecked with the haired Conrads Beard was lighter and not As they dined with the enlisted men sunday and Hud dessert in the officers bedtime wus scheduled for the tired astronauts at Edt with an Early reveille 30 monday they Fly from the car Rier to Cape Kennedy for three Days and return to the manned spacecraft Center at Houston on thursday for More Dcarl clings and just two things interfered with the tightly scheduled pro Gram of examination and tests As soon As they arrived on Board a phone Call from presi Dent Johnson and Calls from their they didst mind interruptions like capsule on gemini s space with us notation Coller still in is taken aboard being fished the Carrier Lake com plan after from the photo native who became tha first Man to make two trips into claimed the important individual ills time aboard gemini combined with the 34 211 minutes he logged aboard Tho Mercury Faith 7 Orbital voyage on May gave him 225 16 he eclipsed the Mark of lit 6 minutes set two years ago by soviet Vos lok 5 Pilot Valery with 190 56 min ranked second to Cooper in All As of the russians could claim Only two the most cosmonauts sent into 11 compared with Amer Cas and the Only Threeman the on Day journey of Vos Khod 1 last All lights have been made with one or two russians Are told of flight Moscow mos cow sunday told millions of rus Sian listeners that gemini s splashed Down safely and made America the space endurance it wus an official admission that the nearly eight Days in space had pushed the russians off the top rung of the total or bits Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad eclipsed the june 1961 Mark of Valery Bykovsky who spent almost five Days orbiting the Earth is Moscow radio broadcast an 80 word announcement which said that geminis astronauts had successfully completed their Mission and set a new Condur Ance record for manned space there was no further but one soviet office worker i am glad it is All Over and has ended i give my congratulations to the staunch a student said i must give my Best to the Brave while the russians merely re ported without elaboration the setting of the new space during the past week they have tossed a barrage of criticism at gemini charging that gemini was a military spy in the and the Kremlin charged that gemini was rushed into space without proper testing in order to beat the soviet Union at any Western observers said the Era of Good sportsmanship in the space race wherein the rus sians and americans have been unstinting in congratulations May be coming to an gemini 5 brought clearly into the open the military overtones of space As America admitted its reconnaissance tasks and president Johnson announced a future military manned Orbital the russians have always officially maintained that their space nights Are