Gemini 8 - The NASA Mission Reports

The sixth manned Gemini mission was to be the first to emphatically prove that two spacecraft could meet and join in space. The task of pulling off this important flight was given to two of NASA's brightest recruits - David Scott and Neil Armstrong. Both men had worked for years in the test-pilot arena and both were highly skilled engineers.

A high level of confidence pervaded the team at NASA's Manned Spaceflight Center because only a few months earlier they had succesfully placed two Gemini spacecraft into orbit and brought them within a few feet of each other. The crew of Gemini 7 had then gone on to spend days in the cramped confines of the Gemini spacecraft with no long-term effects.

Now it was the turn of Gemini 8 to chase down an unmanned target vehicle known as Agena. Once the two orbits were precisely matched Command Pilot Neil Armstrong would then gradually nudge the Gemini into position, and with some skill, and years of preflight work, he would be able to dock the two together.

No one had ever done this before and the entire future of NASA's plans to get to the moon were riding on his ability to complete the mission. What no one knew was that a minor fault had been hiding away in the miles of wiring inside the Gemini spacecraft waiting to spring the worst kind of surprise on the unsuspecting crew and the team back on the ground.

Neil Armstrong and David Scott would have to prove that their years of training supported by nerves of steel could overcome this unforeseen obstacle and get them home safely.

In this book you will find the original NASA documents explaining what was expected of the crew of Gemini 8, and what then came at them unexpectedly and very nearly sacrificed them to the unforgiving void of space.