Checklist, Gemini 10

Michael Collins carried this checklist card into orbit during the Gemini 10 mission, July 18-21, 1966. In any mission of the Gemini program, the astronauts spent a great deal of their time manipulating controls and monitoring displays on the main display console. Crew duties as determined by NASA prior to flight were broken down by mission phase and placed in a checklist for each astronaut. Accomplishing these checklists became a part of the flight routine at every point in the mission. The tasks listed had to accomplished in the order of the checklist as a means of ensuring a successful mission.

Such an approach to flight has its heritage in the earliest days of aviation when pilots developed procedures for takeoffs and landings, writing them down to ensure they were followed, and later expanded to cover virtually any aspect of the flight. In the Gemini program these checklists were stowed at the time of launch in packages on the outer sides of the left and right couches or in a container in a lower equipment bay.

Transferred from the NASA Johnson Space Center to the Museum in 1985.