Unreleased Gemini 8 Photos Donated to Museum

Sixty years after Neil Armstrong and David Scott narrowly escaped disaster during NASA's Gemini 8 mission, previously unreleased photos capturing their return to Earth have been donated to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio.

The images, taken by Army veteran and professional photographer Ron McQueeney, depict the astronauts shortly after their emergency splashdown off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, on March 16, 1966. McQueeney, who was unexpectedly called to document the recovery, escorted Armstrong and Scott from a U.S. Navy recovery ship to Naha Air Base. His widow recently contributed the photos to the museum, which honors Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon and who died in 2012.

The Gemini 8 mission, launched that morning, achieved a major milestone when Armstrong and Scott successfully docked their spacecraft with an unmanned Agena target vehicle, marking the first such maneuver in space. Minutes later, however, the joined vehicles began tumbling uncontrollably, reaching one rotation per second. The astronauts separated from the Agena, but the spinning persisted, threatening their consciousness and safety. Armstrong activated the reentry...