It began as one of those flawless launches that the U.S. public has come to take for granted in the eighth year of the space age. Weather was ideal; the complex countdown proceeded without a hitch. Precisely on schedule, the reliable Atlas booster roared up from Cape Kennedy and out over the Atlantic carrying an unmanned Agena rocket as its payload. Astronauts Walter Schirra and Tom Stafford watched the action on TV as they waited for their own scheduled liftoff, 1 hr. 41 min. later, in Gemini 6, the capsule in which they...
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