April 12th, 2021, 9:44AM / BY Michael Neufeld
This view of Gemini VII from VI-A in December 1965 shows the spacecraft’s orbital configuration.
Fifty-five years ago, on March 16, 1966, the Gemini VIII astronauts made the world’s first space docking, quickly followed by the first life-threatening, in-flight emergency in the short history of the U.S. human spaceflight program. Gemini VIII, joined to its Agena target vehicle, began spinning and gyrating; when the astronauts undocked, Gemini’s rotation accelerated to the point where the crew could black out and die. Gemini VIII lifts off atop a Titan II rocket with command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot David Scott aboard.
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Posted on Mar 16, 2021
Space History Department
Gemini VIII lifts off atop a Titan II rocket with command pilot Neil Armstrong and pilot David Scott aboard.
Fifty-five years ago, on March 16, 1966, the Gemini VIII astronauts made the world’s first space docking, quickly followed by the first life-threatening, in-flight emergency in the short history of the U.S. human spaceflight program. Gemini VIII, joined to its Agena target vehicle, began spinning and gyrating; when the astronauts undocked, Gemini’s rotation accelerated to the point where the crew could black out and die.
Neil Armstrong led the mission, which was to demonstrate space docking, a technique essential to the Apollo lunar landing program. Forty months later, he would become the first human to set foot on the Moon as commander of Apollo 11. His Gemini crewmate was David Scott, who would be the command module pilot of Apollo 9 and the commander of Apollo 15, the first lunar landing to carry a ro