12. [Gemini VI-A] FIRST RENDEZVOUS IN SPACE: Gemini VII spacecraft above the blue Earth Thomas Stafford, 15-16 December 1965 Printed 1965. Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-65-63221]. With NASA caption numbered "NASA S-65-63221" and "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas). 20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.) Historical context The first rendezvous in space, performed by Gemini VI-A and Gemini VII in December 1965, allowed the crew to capture the incredible first photographs of spacecraft against the backdrop of our Home Planet. This iconic image marvellously describes the graceful dance performed by two small spacecraft in orbit around the blue Earth, about 160 miles below. The two spacecraft are just 37 feet apart here. "We reviewed the pictures after we got back. When we saw their clarity – the lighting, the Sun angle, and everything – we realized that they described it very well. The mission will be there in history forever." — Thomas Stafford (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 50) Stafford took the photograph with a Hasselblad 500C camera and its 80mm lens using Kodak SO 217 film with an ASA of 64. Literature NEWSWEEK, 27 December 1966, cover NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, April 1966, pp. 548-549 TIME, 24 December 1965, p. 34 The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962-1972, Schick and Van Haaften, p. 51 (variant) Terry Hope, Spacecam: Photographing the Final Frontier from Apollo to Hubble, p. 67 (variant) Moon: Man's Greatest Adventure, Thomas, ed., p. 115 (variant)