B1-B2
New Photos Add a Human Angle to the Gemini 8 Crisis
A mid-level report on the emergency landing, the images, and Armstrong's response.
Based on source story: These Never-Before-Seen Photos Show Astronaut Neil Armstrong Relaxed and Smiling After He Almost Died in the Gemini 8 Emergency from Smithsonian Magazine
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Previously unseen photographs have added a new human angle to the Gemini 8 emergency that nearly killed Neil Armstrong and David Scott in 1966. The images show the astronauts after their unplanned return near Okinawa, where their mission ended early following a dangerous in orbit.
The landing happened far from the original media plan, so very few journalists were present. That is why Ron McQueeney, a military police officer and photographer on Okinawa, became such an important witness. His pictures stayed in his private collection for decades and have now been donated to Armstrong's museum in Ohio.
Gemini 8 was meant to be the most ambitious mission of its time and had already achieved the first of two spacecraft in orbit. Soon afterward, a faulty thruster sent the craft into a violent spin. Armstrong shut down the main control system and used other thrusters to save the crew. Historians say the same later helped make him the commander of Apollo 11.
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