[bonesmccoy]

Here's additional information on the military Gemini missions. I believe this program was called MOL and was organized under USAF.

Another page exists at http://www.deepcold.com/deepcold/gem_main.html

There were several proposals for various orbital space labs. These proposals were eventually combined into the Apollo Applications Program, which led to Skylab.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/morl.htm

Gemini also had a different program called Dyna-Soar which was a paragliding system for land based recovery of the capsule (or should I say, "Spacecraft"...)

Perhaps the best opportunity for USAF control over manned spaceflight was VAFB's SLC-6.

[Centurion2000]

And now for the really interesting part ... one of the Soyuz capsules had a functional 23mm autocannon installed on it.

[B-Chan]

Gemini also had a different program called Dyna-Soar which was a paragliding system for land based recovery of the capsule (or should I say, "Spacecraft"...)

Nope. The X-20 Dynasoar program predated Gemini and was completely different. The Dynasoar spacecraft was conceived as

a single-pilot manned spaceplane... (manned space bomber, reconnaisance platform, high speed test vehicle), with the launch vehicles at various times including Titan I, Titan II, Saturn I, and finally Titan IIIC. Cancellation on December 10 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1964.

The Dynasoar itself would have been developed into Dynasoar II, III, and Dyna-MOWS (Manned Orbital Weapons System) versions which would have run the gamut of orbital supply, rendezvous and inspection, and orbital bombing. The basic single pilot X-20A Dynasoar had a limited internal payload and volume (450 kg in a payload bay behind the cockpit, enough for another crew member or used for military/scientific payloads).

After its cancellation, the Air Force pursued futher development of manned spaceplanes through the PRIME, ASSET, X-23, and X-24 programs, with suborbital launch of subscale lifting body designs and B-52 drop tests of the X-24A and X-24B lifting body designs into the mid-1970's. Reportedly there was also a black program leading to suborbital flight and reentry of a full-size unmanned lifting body patterned after the NASA HL-10. In the end, the Air Force was pressured by the Nixon Administration to accept participation in the space shuttle program in lieu of separate development of their own designs.

Building the Dynasoar would have given the United States an orbital spaceplane thirty-eight years ago. Instead, our nation is stuck with the struggling Space Shuttle and vaporware Orbital Space Plane programs -- neither of which can do what Dynasoar could have done in 1964.

X-20 Dynasoar image (artist's conception)

[capitan_refugio]

"MOL" was the "Manned Orbital Laboratory." It used a Gemini capsule and a converted Agena(?) module as the space lab. The idea was to make polar launches, so the vehicle would pass over the Soviet Union and Communist China several times daily. Lauches were to be from the "Space Launch Complex #6" ("Slick-6") at Vandenberg AFB in California.

The "DynaSoar" was the "Dynamic Soaring Vehicle." This was a military forerunner to the Space Shuttle we know today. It was delta-winged and had some lifting body capability.

If memory serves me, these military projects we both cancelled in the Kenndy/Johnson Administrations. However, several of the military astronauts on these projects transitioned into the NASA Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs.