From t💎he Personal Collection of Ap▨ollo 10 Commander Tom Stafford

A PERSONAL GIFT FROM GEMINI X MISSION COMMANDER JOHN YOUNG TO THOMAS P. STAFFไORD 

THOMAS P. STAFFORD'S signed provenance letter reads: “The crew emblem displayed below was carried aboard the Gemini X spacecraft during July 18 to 21, 1966.  It was presented to me by my good friend John Young who was mission commander.  John would have one of the most distinguished careers in the entire Astronaut Corps.  He flew two Gemini flights and two Apollo flights, one with me on Apollo X in 1969 and the other landing and walking on the moon in April 1972 during Apollo 16. Later he commanded the first Space Shuttle flight in 1981 and finally the 9th Shuttle flight in 1983. Mike Collins was pilot on Gemini X and later was Command Module Pilot of the most historic mission of all time, Apollo 11.  He remained in lunar orbit to enabled Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to successfully return from the moon after they made the first lunar landing and surface exploration during July 20 and 21, 1969. 

This emblem has the highly symbolic Roman numeral X on the front with two stars reflecting the two astronauts and the Gemini Program. The orbital paths of both the Agena and Gemini spacecraft are plotted around the Roman numeral representing the mission objectives of rendezvous and docking which John and Mike completed successfully on their first flight day.  They used the Agena’s engine to increase their orbit to over 400 nautical miles high. On day two, they used the Agena’s motor again to put them into the same orbit as the Agena used with Neil Armstrong’s Gemini 8 flight and made a rendezvous with it on day three. Mike made two EVA’s during the flight. He had much more success than Gene Cernan and I had on Gemini IX.  John and Mike returned to earth on July 21 and came close to beating my record of the closest landing to target, but were off by around 2 miles.  The USS Guadalcanal picked them up after some 70 hours in space and making 43 orbits of the earth.” 

The Gemini program served as a bridge between the Mercury and 🅰Apollo missions, testing technology and engineering to prepare for humankind’s first steps on the Moon.