Spirit of 76 (part 1): 5 Fun Facts About Gemini 7
- Aeryn Avilla
- Dec 7
- 10 min read
Updated: Dec 7
December 4, 2025 is the 60th anniversary of Gemini 7, the fourth manned flight of the Gemini program and the longest spaceflight until the 1970s. The mission's command pilot was rookie Frank Borman and its pilot was rookie Jim Lovell. The pair would fly to the moon together on the first manned lunar flight, Apollo 8, in December 1968. The crew's backup astronauts were Ed White, Gemini 4 pilot and the first American to walk in space, and Michael Collins. Let's look at five interesting facts about Gemini 7!
1. Patch Me Through
Gemini 7 was only the second mission to feature embroidered patch, a military tradition carried over to NASA by the astronauts of Gemini 5. The main focal point of the insignia is an Olympic torch to symbolize the marathon-like 14 day mission [1]. The torch is flanked by a small Gemini spacecraft on the left and a Roman numeral "VII" (7) on the right. Blue and gold are the colors of the US Air Force and US Navy, Borman's and Lovell's respective military branches. While the flown patch and does not include the crew's names, some souvenir reproductions and the large emblem that hung on the wall of the Mission Operations Control Room did.
While NASA Administrator James Webb's memo regarding the "Cooper patch" called for wearing the insignia on the right breast beneath the nametape, Gemini 7 did not. Or more accurately, could not.
2. Flying with Style
Borman and Lovell wore the lightweight G5C spacesuit developed by the David Clark Company, the manufacturers of the G3C and G4C spacesuits [2]. It was designed to be more comfortable to wear during long-duration spaceflight and be donned and doffed (put on and taken off) in-flight. Instead of a hard helmet, the G5C had a zippered nylon hood with a fixed, clear visor. The astronauts wore modified aviator helmets with built-in earphones and microphones under their hoods for communications and to protect their heads. Only one astronaut was allowed to remove his suit at a time and Jim Lovell became the first American to be in space while not wearing a pressure suit [3]. The crew's performance while not wearing their pressure suits confirmed future Apollo crews would be more comfortable in a shirt-sleeve environment, or an environment in which astronauts would be safe and comfortable in ordinary clothing (or flight suits in the case of the Apollo crews) [4].
As for the patches, Webb instructed the NASA emblem be worn on the left breast and the crew patch be worn on the right breast beneath the nametape. The G5C had ports on the left breast where the Meatball would typically go so the patch was moved to the right beneath the nametape. This meant the Gemini 7 patch had to be worn on the right arm.
3. Roughing It
Gemini 7's primary objective was to spend two weeks in orbit, the length of time it would take to fly to the moon, land on it, and return to Earth. If successful, they would break the manned space endurance record set by Gemini 5 the previous August. The mission lifted off from LC-19 at Cape Kennedy on Saturday, December 4, 1965 at 2:30 PM local time. Alan Bean served as Cape CAPCOM while Charlie Bassett, Gene Cernan, and Elliot See communicated with Gemini 7 from Houston.
Gemini 7's first task upon reaching orbit was station-keeping with the upper stage of their Titan II launch vehicle. Gemini 4's attempt to do the same was unsuccessful. The pair took turns maneuvering the spacecraft closer to and farther from the spent tank for 15 minutes. Unlike previous crews who had alternating sleep periods and found it difficult to get adequate rest due to the noise of their crewmates, the astronauts' sleep periods were at the same time.
On flight day 3, Borman and Lovell viewed the underwater launch of a Polaris A-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile from the USS Benjamin Franklin (SSBN 640) during her shakedown cruise off the coast of Cape Kennedy [5]. On flight day 5, Gemini 7 circularized their orbit in preparation for rendezvous.
Contrail of Polaris launch off the Cape (NASA ID: S65-63797) | Polaris missile launching at sea (US Navy)
The Gemini 5 astronauts dealt with two inconveniences during their eight-day flight: Boredom and dandruff. Borman and Lovell heeded their advice and brought along books to pass the time– Roughing It by Mark Twain for Borman and Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds for Lovell. To prevent skin flakes from accumulating on instrument panels, the pair showered with anti-dandruff shampoo and used sanitation wipes to keep the cockpit clean. On December 12 at 1:25 PM EST, Borman and Lovell surpassed the eight-day record set by Gemini 5.
4. Flying in Formation
If you're learning about space history for the first time, you might be thinking, "Wait, what about Gemini 6?" Gemini 6 was scheduled to launch on October 25, 1965 and spend almost 47 hours in orbit, during which it would dock with the Agena Target Vehicle four times. This was to be the very first docking of two spacecraft. However, the Agena was lost during launch and Gemini 6 was postponed.
NASA decided to repurpose Gemini 6, re-designated Gemini 6A, for rendezvous with Gemini 7. After a harrowing launch pad abort on December 12, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford lifted off and joined Borman and Lovell in orbit on December 15. For the first time in history, four people were in space at the same time. This was also the first instance two manned American spacecraft were in orbit simultaneously [6]. It took six hours for Gemini 6A to catch up with Gemini 7 and once at a distance of 270 miles (434.5 km), Gemini 6A's radar locked onto Gemini 7. Visibility was obtained at a distance of 60 miles (96.5 km) and at 130 feet (39.6 m), "with no relative velocity between the two spacecraft" (Uri, 2020), the world's first space rendezvous was achieved.
For the next three orbits, or 270 minutes, Gemini 7 and 6A flew in formation at distances as far as 300 feet (91.4 m) and as close as only 1 foot (3 m). The astronauts even made visual contact with each other through the windows. Schirra, Stafford, and Lovell were all graduates of the US Naval Academy while Borman was the lone West Point alumnus. Schirra and Stafford held up a sign that read "Beat Army" as a friendly jab at Borman.
The spacecraft separated to a distance of about 10 miles (16.1 km) to prevent collision during the crews' sleep periods. Gemini 6A's mission ended the following day, December 16, but Gemini 7 still had three days to go. Now with the first space rendezvous complete, Borman and Lovell finished the remaining mission experiments, dealt with malfunctioning thrusters, and read their books.
Understandably, two weeks in a cockpit the size of the front seat of a Volkswagen vehicle took its toll on the astronauts. Borman had difficulty sleeping and upon return to Earth, both were a little fatigued and had lost weight. Such confined living spaces could make or break relationships and Borman and Lovell remained good friends the rest of their lives. The capsule is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
5. Anchors Aweigh
On December 18, after 13 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes, and 1 second in space, and after completing 206 orbits, Borman and Lovell splashed down in the west Atlantic Ocean southwest of the island of Bermuda only 7.5 miles (12.2 km) from their target. Gemini 7 was the third manned spacecraft recovered by the USS Wasp (CV-18), an Essex-class aircraft carrier built during World War II. She was the tenth of eleven total Continental and US Navy ships to bear the name and received eight battle stars for her participation in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater, including the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and the Battle of Iwo Jima. After modernization and service in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean, Wasp recovered five Gemini spacecraft— half of the program's manned flights. Gemini 4, Gemini 6A, Gemini 7, Gemini 9A, and Gemini 12 were all plucked from the ocean by the USS Wasp and her crew, and the ship was also a backup recovery vessel for Gordon Cooper and Mercury-Atlas 9 [7]. Wasp was decommissioned in 1972 and sold for scrap in 1973.
Lovell and Borman on the deck of Wasp (NASA ID: S65-61830) | Gemini 7 and Gemini 6A capsules at Mayport Naval Station near Jacksonville, FL (NASA ID: S65-65948)
Post-Flight
Borman and Lovell were reunited with Schirra and Stafford at the Kennedy Space Center on December 19 and held their postflight press conference at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston on December 30. On February 21, 1960, Wally and Jo Schirra and Frank and Susan Borman began a three-week, eight-country goodwill tour. The two couples visited Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. They were overseas for the deaths of the original Gemini 9 astronauts (February 28) and for the Gemini 8 mission abort (March 17).
Frank Borman was promoted to colonel and assigned to the Apollo program to command its fourth mission. He was the only astronaut to serve on the Apollo 204 Accident Review Board, the nine-member team tasked with investigating the cause of the Apollo 1 fire and recommending corrective measures. He temporarily worked at the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California, where the Apollo command modules were manufactured, to oversee the implementation of the corrective measures. Borman was to command a test flight of the Lunar Module in medium Earth orbit in early 1969, but due to delays in LM production and the looming threat of a manned Soviet moonshot, was given command of a new mission— one that would place the first humans in lunar orbit. Borman, Lovell, and Bill Anders formed the crew of Apollo 8 and in late December 1968, became the first humans to break free from Earth's gravitational pull and orbit the moon.
Borman retired from NASA and the US Air Force in 1970 and joined the now-defunct Eastern Airlines, promoting to the company's CEO by 1975. He resigned from Eastern in 1986 and served on various boards of directors until the late 1990s. He spent the next 30 years rebuilding and flying vintage aircraft in Montana and following John Glenn's passing in December 2016, became the oldest living American astronaut. Frank Borman passed away on November 3, 2023 at the age of 95 from a stroke.
In January 1966, Jim Lovell was assigned as backup command pilot of Gemini 10 with rookie Buzz Aldrin as backup pilot. After the T-38 crash that killed Gemini 9 astronauts Elliot See and Charles Bassett, he and Aldrin were reassigned as backups to Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan of Gemini 9A. Lovell and Aldrin flew the final Gemini mission, Gemini 12, from November 11 to 15, 1966. The pair rendezvoused and docked with the Agena Target Vehicle and Aldrin performed three EVAs (two standup and one free-flight). On January 27, 1967, the same day as the Apollo 1 fire, Lovell and fellow astronauts Neil Armstrong, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, and Richard Gordon attended the signing of the Outer Space Treaty at the White House in Washington, DC.
In 1968, Lovell made his first journey to the moon with Borman and Anders. In April 1970, he became the first person to fly to the moon twice as commander of the fifth manned lunar mission, Apollo 13. En route to the moon, one of the Apollo service module's oxygen tanks exploded and crippled the spacecraft, so the lunar landing had to be aborted. Lovell retired from the US Navy and NASA in 1973 with the rank of captain and worked in the private sector until the 1990s. Only eleven days younger than Borman, he became the oldest living astronaut after the latter's passing in late 2023. Jim Lovell passed away on August 7, 2025 at the age of 97.
Gemini 7 was a huge success and proved humans could survive in space the length of time a trip to the moon and back would take. The first manned space mission of 1966 would attempt to perform the first space docking, but we have another late 1965 mission to cover first...
Author's note: If you'd like to hear about Gemini 7 directly from the crew, I highly recommend the 1994 TBS documentary "Moon Shot". No written article could ever replicate their sense of humor. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out my YouTube channel. If you like this content, please consider supporting my website by donating to my Ko-Fi. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
[1] A half-marathon is 13.1 miles (21 km).
[2] Gemini 3 was the only crew to wear the G3C and all other crews except Gemini 7 wore the G4C.
[3] Gemini 7 was not the first crew to not wear pressure suits in space. One of the many notable features of the Soviet Voskhod 1, launched in October 1964, was the omission of spacesuits due three cosmonauts being crammed into a spacecraft designed for only two.
[4] The same goes for aircraft and the ISS is probably the best example of a shirt-sleeve environment in space exploration.
[5] The UGM-27 Polaris was a solid-fueled nuclear-armed SLBM used by the US Navy in the 1960s and 70s. They were tested at Cape Canaveral and on July 20, 1960, the USS George Washington (SSBN 598), America's first ballistic missile submarine, launched the first Polaris missile while submerged. The first submerged launch of the Polaris A-3 was from the USS Andrew Jackson (SSBN 619) in October 1963 and the missile entered operation in September 1964 onboard the USS Daniel Webster (SSBN 626).
[6] This had been accomplished by the Soviet Union twice previously with Vostok 3 and 4 (1962) and Vostok 5 and 6 (1963) but they were incapable of rendezvous.
[7] Cooper and Faith 7 were retrieved by the USS Kearsarge.
Bibliography
Caiella, J. M. "Two Navies, Three Names." U.S. Naval Institute, June 2023. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2023/june/two-navies-three-names
Dorr, Gene. "Gemini 7." Space Mission Patches. https://www.genedorr.com/patches/Gemini/Ge07.html
Hacker, Barton C. and Grimwood, James M. "On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini." NASA, 1977. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780012208/downloads/19780012208.pdf
"Our History: 1964: Polaris A3 Becomes Operational." Strategic Systems Programs. https://www.ssp.navy.mil/About-Us/Our-History/
Toppan, A. "USS Benjamin Franklin." SSBN 640. https://www.ssbn640.com/640techdesc.htm
Uri, John. "55 Years Ago: The Spirit of 76 – The First Rendezvous in Space." NASA Johnson Space Center, December 2020. https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-the-spirit-of-76-the-first-rendezvous-in-space/
This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL). Go Cats!