Sunday Movie Matinee: Gemini 6 and 7

If you’ve ever tried to keep pace with another vehicle and talk to someone while both vehicles are in motion, you can probably appreciate how difficult it must be to accomplish the feat at 17,000 miles per hour like Gemini 6 and 7 astronauts had to.

On 15 December 1965 Walter M. Schirra and Thomas P. Stafford blasted off from Cape Canaveral to rendezvous with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, who had already been in space for several days, studying the effects of long-term spaceflight. The original Gemini 6A aborted on the pad, and some quick thinking by Schirra saved the mission, when he opted not to follow procedure and eject the capsule when their Titan II launch vehicle failed to lift off. Three days later, the astronauts were back on the pad and lifted off without a hitch — with Borman and Lovell watching from space.

Just under six hours later, Gemini 6 closed in on the cramped and weary Gemini 7 crew and practiced rendezvous procedures. Schirra flew circles around Gemini 7 and the astronauts spent five hours traveling together, sometimes just inches apart. NASA produced a fascinating film about the joint missions called PROUD CONQUEST, which you can watch below the fold.

The narrator, Congressman Richard H. Poff, was a B-24 pilot that flew 35 bombing missions with the Eighth Air Force during World War II and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Note: This piece, originally posted 15 December 2011 and has been updated since the original Discovery Channel videos were taken down.