Founs at the NASA HQ archive were four pages from a McDonnell Aircraft presentation on an idea for a small space station that would be launched by an Atlas with a Mercury capsule. Two ideas were shown for how the astronaut would get from the Mercury to the space station; in one, an inflatable tunnel would connect the two externally; in the other, the Mercury capsule would tilt up and its hatch would mate with a hatch on the side of the station.
The similarity to the later MOL are readily apparent. McDonnell studied the same means of getting the Gemini crew to the MOL as were examined here; the difference was that in the case of MOL, the end result was a third option, that of a tunnel from the MOL straight into the aft of the Gemini capsule through the heat shield. That was not an option with this design, however, as the Mercy capsule was both too small for such tinkering… and the Mercury’s retro pack was in the way.
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