10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Bolts and liftoff.
Roger, clock is started.
A program.
Roger roll.
First 10 seconds.
A roll is completed.
Roger, roll complete.
There goes the pitch.
Roger pitch. You're on your way, Molly Brown.
Now, man.

Okay, I'm separating from the spacecraft.
Okay, separating from the spacecraft, this time, align.
Okay, my thruster is out.
Okay, it is out.
I think I'm dragging a little bit so I don't want to fire the gun yet.
Okay, I'm out.
Okay, it's out. It's float free.

Okay, put a little roll in, take it right out.
Ryan, you there, Jimbo?
Yeah, you know. I can't see anything.
Rock's loud, I'll come over to you.

Well, sit on your cloth. I'll get ready to go.
Okay, I rolled off. I'm rolling to the right now under my own influence. There goes the Looks like a thermal process, Jim.
It is, Jim.
Now, I'm coming off the spacecraft.
I'm coming back down. Now.
I'm under my own control.

Looks pretty funny out there. Can you see my glove out there, Jim?
Does it?
Yeah.
I got to get over.

Okay, I'm coming over.
Okay, stand by. Can you see me yet?
Oh, I sure do.
Huh?

There you are.
Got the camera now.
Okay.
This is the You're right in front of it and it looks beautiful.
I feel like a million dollars, I'm going to pitch out.
You are left.

I'm coming back to you.

Are you reading me, uh CapCom?
Okay, hold on a moment.
Okay, you're the receiver.
Okay, uh, that looks sick. That's right. CapCom, I, it's very easy to maneuver with the gun. The only problem I have is I haven't got enough fuel.
I've exhausted the fuel now, but I was able to maneuver myself out, front of this spacecraft back and maneuvered right back on the back of the adapter.
Just about, Jim, came back into his view.
The only thing I wish is I had more.
This is the greatest experience I've it's just tremendous.

Yeah, smile.
Right.
Let's put an eyeball in your hand now. All right, let me take a close up picture there.
Oh you you sprayed up my windshield, you dirty dog.
Yeah.
You see how it's all sprayed up there?
Yeah.
It looks like there's a coating on the outside and you walked it off.
That's exactly what you got.

Gemini 4, Houston CapCom.
Gemini 4, Houston CapCom.
Your spacecraft rates are up about 1 degree per second, and pitch and yaw on about half a degree per second and roll.
Not positive, not at the position that I've got.
Okay.
Break in, Gus.
Houston CapCom.
Gemini 4, Houston CapCom.
It's no aspect that looks like Houston down below us.

Gemini 4, Houston CapCom.
Alright, hey Gus, I don't know if you read it, but we're right over Houston.

The flight director says, get back in.
Jim, uh, got any message for us?
Gemini 4, get back in.
Okay.

I don't know, we're coming over the west west and want you to come back in now.
Roger. We've been trying to talk to you for a while here.
No, back in. Come on.
This is almost not fair to him, but I'm coming.
He's got 3 and 1/2 more days to go, buddy.
I'm coming.
Okay.

Say again?
Is it?
92-1 is the is the orbit you have a go for.
Yeah, I just can't, you. Oh, okay.
You were cutting out and I couldn't read you very well.
Oh, okay.

The flight director like to speak to you for just a moment.
Good morning, Gordo.
Yes, how are you?
How does it feel for the United States to be the new record holder?
At last, huh?
Roger, congratulations.

I I I'd like to add one thing in there just for your information. When we first powered up this morning, after having been drifting for quite a while, that all the thrusters were exceedingly sluggish.
And we saw great blobs of liquid coming out on a drifting bias when we were firing them.
In the in pulse mode.

Roger, Roger. That's interesting, isn't it?
I went to direct uh to see if uh we could clear them out and it did seem to and we were getting big globules of liquid going bias, but they cleared out.

Okay, uh we were we were wondering about a drop in fuel here and that might have been where uh where we lost some of it.
It could be. Well, we um in doing the last uh turning experiment uh we were having great difficulty getting on the radar test there. We had a bit of trouble holding our attitude and finally, we had to go to direct to get platform aligned and uh And then we were sailing around trying to find which thruster it was, was giving us the problem.
Roger.
Yeah, one other thing was is we do get these uh tumbling rates pretty high out of the uh venting hydrogen, so when we first started aligning the platform uh we apparently had an inter bit an operation on number 7, and uh we attributed the fact that we'd started drifting off to to the fact that the hydrogen tank was venting. And then we finally got smart after a while and decided to look at something.
Roger.

Gemini 5 will long be remembered and long honored for the courage of the crew and the confidence of the team on the ground, and the vision of all who dared conceive this great enterprise.
We can only hope that your achievement will encourage all other nations to accept more fully what great accomplishments can be wrought by cooperating together in these new realms of infinity.
So I just want to say, God bless you both. We're glad you're back. We shall be everlastingly proud of you and we are so thankful for all the blessings that are ours.

5 4 3 2 1 0 Ignition.
Engine start with a liftoff.

We're on our way back.

Gemini 7, Houston, do you still read us?
All the way, Houston.
Sorry to disturb your lunch, but we have a message here we think you'd be interested in.
We're coming up on a special time here about five seconds.
Mark, you have just exceeded the world's manned space flight endurance record.

Gemini 7 and 6, would you continue with the description of your station keeping?
Right now, six is about 10 feet up off and to the left of seven. Uh we're just flying a nose to nose. Approximately 15 feet apart.
Roger?
We can very clearly see the horizon scanners operate.
Roger, Jim.
Gemini 7, are you able to see in the windows of six very easily and vice versa?
Roger, 7 here.

The performance of both of the spacecrafts in this flight has been superb. I've used that word before, but it's the absolute truth.
Ah in particular I'd like to single out the performance of the fuel cells on spacecraft 7.
It was just uh a real pleasure to have worked with those cells, as they got us all the the power and the uh the support we needed to keep those men up there for as long as we did.
Certainly the uh performance of the systems on uh spacecraft 6, the the radar and the computer and its platform and the the way in the which the men used them was just uh fabulous.

I don't think I have any words that could really express the feelings that I have today about this particular mission, with the the tremendous feeling that that there is of of uh first first relief and and the the feeling that we really do uh have two men back, having uh been 14 days in that spacecraft, uh and in good condition, and they really look at at the present time to be in uh to be in very, very good condition, even uh beyond uh what we could have hoped.

Is he docked?
Negative, he's not docked yet.
Okay, Gemini 8, uh we have TM solid, you're looking good on the ground, go ahead and, uh, Okay.

All right, we're going to hold off on this SPC thing until he does get docked.
Okay, go ahead with your memory compare.
Roger.
Let's know what you get out of that.
Okay, we have a rigid light getting stock rigid now.
Say again.
Okay, Gemini 8, it looks good here from the ground. Uh we are showing Con rigid. Uh, everything looks good for the docking.
Okay, uh, we're going to cycle our stop arm switch.
Roger.
In flight, we are dark. Everything looks good.
And he's really a smoothie.
Well, Roger. Hey, congratulations. This is really good.

Okay, we uh just for your information, the uh agenda was very stable, and at the present time we're having uh no noticeable oscillations at all.
Roger. Copy. Agena very stable and no noticeable oscillation. Very good.

Gemini 8 CSQ CapCom, contact county read.
Well, we got through this problem here which which forward some and that's uh where we disconnected from the Agena.
Okay, uh, we get your spacecraft free indication here.
Roger.
We're showing you spacecraft 3.
What seems to be the problem?
Roll or nothing, we can't turn turn anything off.
I'm an increasing the load full.
All right.
CSQ flight.
Correct, flight. Did he say he could not turn the Agena off?
No, he says he has separated from the Agena and he's in a roll and he can't stop it.
His rate pressure, his rate pressure is down to zero. It's all great human pressure.
CSQ, this is Flight. Go ahead.
Find out how how much RCS fuel he has used and uh if he is just on one ring.
All right.

Uh ACSQ uh how much RCS have you used and are you just on one range?
That's right. We're on one range. uh Trying to save the other range. We started with two ranges, but uh now we're on one range.
Uh Roger. What about the RCS usage?
Okay. We're down to 1,700 pounds uh right now on RCSB.
Roger.
And we had about 2350 on A.
Okay, copy.
Go ahead.
ACSQ, how are you doing?
CSQ flight.
Okay. Relax, everything's okay.
We did have a positioning problem where I continued to float out of the stirrups. And uh did not have have freedom of both hands for any continued length of time. Uh this is why uh or this is as it let me say this, as a result, I had to work continually against the pressure suit against the the stiffness of the suit and uh this work then uh had to be taken out through the environmental control system. About the time that I got got here, uh into the back into the area, started working, connecting some hooks on a tether, uh the sun was just about to go down and Tom, being in the front of the spacecraft, was almost in total darkness and I was in in total sunlight. And I immediately got very warm on the back and I'll explain this in a minute, but I got extremely hot in the back as a matter of fact. In the small of the back area. We stopped and took a rest uh until the sun went down and then we continued on with with the some of our our task of operating and and donning the AMU. About this time is when my visor started fogging up because I had put in so much extra work in just maintaining position, I began now to overload apparently the the capability of the of the chest pack.
Gemini 10, an astronaut, John Young, describes a propulsion system burn which pushed the spacecraft to a new world's altitude record. Young is heard describing a film shown at a post-flight conference. The date is August 1st, 1966.
Now we show us uh coming up on Hawaii for the first primary propulsion system burn.
Mike, through the switch and a minute and 24 seconds later, boy, it was really something. Uh, we had a -1G and we were driven forward in the cockpit and for 11 seconds, we got a tremendous thrill. The colors are just beautiful. And here we are.
On our way to Apogee and to a new world's altitude record. And I might say that it was set incidental to doing our job, of which I'm extremely proud.

In the following, Gemini 10 astronaut Michael Collins comments on extravehicular activity during his flight. The comment was made during a post-flight conference in Houston, August 1, 1966.
a considerable portion of your attention must be devoted to uh to holding your body in a position which is temporarily advantageous for the type of work you're doing. And and I I think this is the the basic uh problem in EVA, without some sort of uh of handholds or or restraining devices, uh a large percentage of the astronauts' time is going to be devoted to uh to torquing his body around uh until it's in the proper position to do some useful work. And in this process of torquing your body around, you usually find that you uh you overshoot and bounce back and you you sort of sway back and forth and rotate around in the proximity of your job site, but it's extremely difficult to to damp out all the motions and to hold yourself motion less. Really, I found I I was never absolutely motion less uh in trying to perform a task, so I was I was constantly moving back and forth in in front of and across the particular job site that I was interested in.
Following is a statement by NASA's Deputy Administrator Dr. Robert Seamans. He speaks of accomplishments during the Gemini flights and particularly of the just concluded Gemini 10 mission. The comments were made August 1, 1966.
Gemini has done much more to open the way to the moon than we could have hoped for 5 years ago.
And it has given this country an operational spacecraft important to national defense.
With Gemini, we've developed our ability to maneuver in space, to change orbits, to inspect other objects in space, to rendezvous and dock, and to use the power of an orbiting rocket as a switch engine in space.
Gemini has supported men in space, in good health, for twice as long as it takes to get to the moon and back.
And Gemini has brought the astronauts safely and precisely to Earth whenever required under both normal and emergency conditions.
Gemini has enabled the astronauts themselves to demonstrate their ability to function effectively in and out of their spacecraft.
And to serve as test pilots in a variety of new space operations, and to a to attend to significant scientific and technological experiments.
In the mission we're going to look at more closely today, the astronauts proved their skill in carrying out two rendezvous rendezvous maneuvers.
In the second, when they converged on the Agena left from Gemini 8, they tracked optically without the assistance of radar.
They used the Agena as a switch engine to travel further into space than man has to date.
And they collected a micrometeorite experiment from Agena 8 that had been exposed to the space environment since last March.
This required Major Collins to operate outside the spacecraft a second time.
Gemini has demonstrated the feasibility of almost everything we plan to do in Apollo, except land softly on the moon and return safely through the Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 mph.
Saturn V is required to inject Apollo into the atmosphere at such speeds.
But in parallel programs, the Project Fire tests and the first Apollo flight with the advanced Saturn 1 have already gone a long way toward proving the design of the Apollo heat shield.
And Surveyor has demonstrated techniques for a soft landing on the moon and for effective operations from the lunar surface.
Perhaps most important of all, in eight manned Gemini flights and two more to come, we're amassing a great wealth of operating experience and operating skills. It'd be difficult to overstate what it means to the American space effort to be starting the Apollo program with Gemini experience already available to us.
We will open the manned flight phase of the Apollo program with a seasoned team with letter men at key positions.

Gemini 11, an astronaut, Richard Gordon speaks of his extravehicular activity and its problems. The date is September 26, 1966 at a post-flight conference in Houston.
Here is the most frustrating experience in the world, this is trying to put that clamp on, and you can see the way my right hand is going, that I had a great deal of difficulty in stabilizing it so I could get a little bit of friction on it. Every time I'd tighten it down and turn loose of it to get a new purchase on it, I'd bump it or hit it and it would just spin on the docking bar. Then I'd have to stop it and put it in the right position. The position had to be fixed so that Pete and I both could see the status display panel on the Agena for the burn. So it had to be precisely in place before it could be locked down.
And all I'm doing there is batting that thing around the docking bar.
Once I got a little bit of friction on this clamp that could hold it in place, I actually let go with my feet and actually floated and held on with both hands and finished clamping it down. This essentially completed the the attachment of that tether.
Honors for the crew of Gemini 11. In the following, NASA Administrator James Webb presents the Exceptional Service Medal to astronaut Charles Conrad, September 1966.
This citation reads, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awards to Charles Conrad, Jr., the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, for outstanding contributions to space flight and engineering as command pilot of Gemini 11. He executed for the first time orbital maneuvers to rendezvous and dock with an Agena in less than one orbit, and then using the Agena rocket, reached a new altitude record of 850 miles. He performed the first tethered station keeping exercise in which artificial gravity was produced and participated in the first closed-loop controlled reentry. This performance has greatly increased man's knowledge of space flight.
Next, Gemini 11 astronaut, Richard Gordon is presented the Exceptional Service Medal. The speaker is NASA Administrator, James Webb.
This citation reads the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awards to Richard F. Gordon, Jr., the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, for outstanding contributions to space flight and engineering, as pilot of Gemini 11, which for the first time, docked with an Agena on the first orbit and then using an Agena rocket, reached a new altitude record of 850 miles. He performed two periods of extravehicular activity which included attaching a tether to the Agena, and retrieving a nuclear emulsion experiment package. He assisted with the first tethered station keeping exercise in which artificial gravity was produced, and participated in the first closed-loop controlled reentry. This performance has greatly increased man's knowledge of space flight.

Gemini 12, the last of the Gemini series. Astronaut James Lovell describes, at a press conference, his problems with radar. The date, November 23rd, 1966.
We were getting set for our final maneuvers down at the terminal phase initiations for the final rendezvous.
When Buzz noticed that the computer wasn't giving any change of range, and I looked down at the little green light that tells us that we have a radar lock on and it was off. And for a minute there, both of us just looked at each other, we said, oh no, it can't happen to us.
Any anybody else, or any other time, but gee, not this time.
But somebody had turned on us, the turn-up our radar had indeed failed and we went to the radar backup procedures which we had practiced quite a bit in our preflight training but really never expected to use.
The first thing on my list it said acquire the target visually, and I looked up there and I couldn't see a thing.
Buzz took out his trusty sextant which had an 8 power scope and put it up to the window and spotted the target. And I looked up again and that speck on the windshield turned out to be the Agena.
So we bore sided on the target and the rest of the rendezvous is more or less history, it was successful and now I'm sort of glad that we had a radar failure because it gave us an opportunity to to use the backup charts that all the crews have been practicing quite a bit but uh have not really utilized.

In the following, Gemini 12 astronaut James Lovell describes the solar eclipse witnessed during the flight of November, 1966.
I had on my side a very, almost opaque gold filter, which I could see the round circle of the sun and it was my job to track the sun through this filter as it, as it came up to the eclipse.
Uh, just as the time was approaching, I could see the moon, which was a dark disk, come across the, the limb of the sun and start to, start to occult it.
Uh, I thought at first that we were really going to miss it because it appeared that the moon was a little bit lower than the sun and that we would never get a total eclipse.
But as we approached this position and we approached the time of totality, suddenly the complete window became black.
And in an impulse, I ripped off the the filter and looked, looked out and I could see a, a black disk against a sort of a, a black sky with a brilliant ring around it of the corona of the, of the sun.
Just for a few seconds I took a look at the total eclipse and I knew that uh, we had indeed completed the rendezvous.
Shortly thereafter, I put the filter back on and soon the this very brilliant sphere of the sun shining through from the other side of the moon, it had, it had taken place. It was quite a beautiful sight.

In the following, astronaut Edwin Aldrin comments on the Gemini 12 experience with extravehicular activity. The comments were made during a post-flight press conference during November, 1966.
To summarize, what the lessons of what I think we learned from uh our EVA on this flight, first I think we learned uh the value, the great value of a restraint system. In order to perform a task in EVA, we first must take the time to set up a restraint to the body that will substitute for the 1G that we have down here where where our feet are in contact with the ground. We have to fix the uh the body in a position where we can then devote our entire effort to the task at hand. The second uh lesson that I think we learned is uh concerns the value of

underwater training that we had. Uh this was extremely valuable to us in letting us go through the entire timeline of the EVA mission. Uh the uh third lesson that I think we learned was that uh sincere and intense training and very close attention to equipment familiarization uh really pays off in these type of efforts, and there's just no substitute for uh very close training.

Following is a statement of the Gemini flight program by Dr. Robert Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston. The statement came at the conclusion of the Gemini XII flight, and Dr. Gilruth compliments astronauts Lovell and Aldrin.

Of the ten Gemini manned flights, each one, in its own special way, has added new knowledge and has helped pave the way for the next. Each time, it has seemed most difficult to surpass the previous performance, yet each time, it has been done. I have been well aware of the high standard of skill, devotion, and courage required of each crew member in this series of pioneering flights. I have been thankful, as have all of you, for the successful completion of each mission. For Captain Lovell, this is his second space flight. For Colonel Aldrin, it's his first. Both men are worthy of the anchor position they have played as pilots in this last of the Gemini series, Gemini XII.