GEMINI 7
DEC. 4-18, 1965
Launched into space aboard Gemini 7 on December 4, 1965, astronauts Frank Borman and James A. Lovell Jr. accomplished two of the central objectives of the Gemini program: rendezvous and long-duration space flight.
Their primary mission was to show that humans could live in weightlessness for 14 days, a space endurance record that would stand until 1970. Their spacecraft also served as the target vehicle for Gemini 6, piloted by Walter M. Schirra Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford, who carried out the world's first space rendezvous. These two achievements were critical steps on the road to the Moon.

The two-man Gemini spacecraft was derived from the smaller one-man Mercury capsule, which carried the first Americans into space from 1961 to 1963. McDonnell Aircraft of St. Louis designed and built both vehicles for NASA.

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Racing to Space
The Moon decision
To reach the moon
Apollo 11
Later Apollo missions
What we learned about the Moon
After the Apollo Program


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Created: 7/99