NASA spacecraft found in 50-year-old time capsuleThe first item pulled out from the newly-unearthed time capsule was a small, conical piece of black plastic.
"A Mercury capsule!" someone called out from among the several dozen spectators.
"Apollo!" another among the crowd declared.
In fact, it was a model of a Gemini spacecraft, the two-man capsule that NASA was flying at the time the archive was buried outside the Clear Lake Theatre in Houston on April 20, 1966. Following the Gemini out of the ground were the parts for its launch vehicle, the Titan II rocket, and a stand for the vintage desktop model.
Unfortunately for the Freeman Memorial Library (or as it is known today, the Clear Lake City-County Freeman Branch Library), the benefactor of the time capsule's contents as was engraved on the half-century-old plaque that covered it, next out of the buried steel box were several buckets full of water.