If Gemini 8 had failed ... NASA nearly lost a capsule and its crew. The first time was during America’s first orbital mission, John Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight, on February 20, 1962.

There were those who thought that flying two spacecraft whizzing around the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour wouldn’t work, and Gemini sought to prove them wrong. To achieve this, Gemini needed ...

US astronaut John Young, who flew to the ... chief Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. Young was the only person to have flown missions on the Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programmes.