91. [Gemini VI-A] FIRST RENDEZVOUS IN SPACE: a "golden disk in the sky" Thomas Stafford, 15-16 December 1965 Printed 1965. Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-65-63223]. Numbered "NASA S-65-63223" in red in the top margin, with "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 A breathtaking view of Gemini VII captured during history's first space rendezvous. The golden adapter end of the spacecraft glows brilliantly in the sunlight, just 42 feet away, as it hovers in station-keeping mode above Earth, 160 miles below. The golden disk, a thermal blanket, protected vital machinery and instruments from the Sun's intense rays in the vacuum of space, while the loose straps at the back were remnants torn free during launch. Stafford took the photograph with a Hasselblad 500C camera and its 80mm lens using Kodak SO 217 film with an ASA of 64. "It was quite a shock to us when we saw all the dangling particles. Then of course we realized they were primer cords, the devices used to separate the spacecraft from the booster." Walter Schirra (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 50) Literature LIFE, 7 January 1969, p. 29 The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962-1972, Schick and Van Haaften, pp. 50-51