the astronauts, tended to pronounce the name , rhyming with knee. NASA's public affairs office issued a statement in 1965 declaring "Jeh-mih-nee" the "official" pronunciation. Gus Grissom, acting as Houston capsule communicator when Ed White performed his spacewalk on Gemini 4, is heard on flight recordings pronouncing the spacecraft's call sign "Jeh-mih-nee 4", and the NASA pronunciation is used in the 2018 film First Man. Program origins and objectives The Apollo program was conceived in early 1960 as a three-man spacecraft to follow Project Mercury. Jim Chamberlin, the head of engineering at the Space Task Group (STG), was assigned in February 1961 to start working on a bridge program between Mercury and Apollo. He presented two initial versions of a two-man spacecraft, then designated Mercury Mark II, at a NASA retreat at Wallops Island in March 1961. Scale models were shown in July 1961 at the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation's offices in St. Louis. After Apollo was chartered to land men on the Moon by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961, it became evident to NASA officials that a follow-on to the Mercury program was required to develop certain spaceflight capabilities in support of Apollo. NASA approved the two-man / two-vehicle program rechristened Project Gemini (Latin for "twins"), in reference to the third constellation of the Zodiac with its twin stars Castor and Pollux, on December 7, 1961. McDonnell Aircraft was contracted to build it on December 22, 1961. The program was publicly announced on January 3, 1962, with these major objectives: To demonstrate endurance of humans and equipment in spaceflight for extended periods, at least eight days required for a Moon landing, to a maximum of two weeks To effect rendezvous and docking with another vehicle, and to maneuver the combined spacecraft using the propulsion system of the target vehicle To demonstrate Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), or space-"walks" outside the protection of the spacecraft, and to evaluate the astronauts' ability to perform tasks there To perfect techniques of atmospheric reentry and touchdown at a pre-selected location on land Team Chamberlin designed the Gemini capsule, which carried a crew of two. He was previously the chief aerodynamicist on Avro Canada's Avro Arrow fighter interceptor program. Chamberlin joined NASA along with 25 senior Avro engineers after cancellation of the Canadian Arrow program, and became head of the U.S. Space Task Group's engineering division in charge of Gemini. The prime contractor was