posted 12-23-2025 11:37 AM               

Space Cover 837: We're Just Sitting Here Breathing

This past week marked the 60th anniversary of the world's first space rendezvous between two orbiting vehicles. Gemini 6A launched and caught up with a previously launched Gemini 7 and got to within a foot of each other proving that rendezvous in space between 2 orbiting vehicles was possible adding to the collective knowledge needed for the Apollo moon landings. But how did this all come about?

The first cover pictured is the catalyst of this idea of Gemini spacecraft meeting in orbit. It is postmarked for the original launch date of Gemini 6. Gemini 6 was supposed to conduct the first docking of two orbiting vehicles. An Atlas rocket was to launch an Agena upper stage so that the Agena would be the target vehicle for Gemini 6 to dock with. But unfortunately the Atlas exploded in flight and everything went in the water. Gemini 6 was scrubbed and the flight cancelled... temporarily.

The cover is postmarked at Kennedy Space Center and has the Official NASA cachet. Covers for the launch should not have been postmarked as there was no Gemini 6 launch. But for some reason about 3000 were cancelled and received the Official NASA cachet. The rest were held for what would become the Gemini 6A launch a couple of months later. It is interesting to note that this Official NASA cachet for Gemini 6 is on a cover. Many of the NASA cachets you will find are on aerogram envelopes.

The idea was then put forth to launch Gemini 7 on its planned 14-day mission and then have the renamed Gemini 6A launch towards the end of the mission to rendezvous with Gemini 7. The launch date was set for Dec. 12, 1965. The Titan-II rocket's engines ignited for just over a second and then shut down. Unbeknownst at the time, a small plug had vibrated loose slightly early and triggered the shutdown.

Another scrub. Commander Wally Schirra never felt the rocket liftoff and chose to not pull the handle to initiate the ejection seats saying that he and Tom Stafford were just sitting there breathing. By not panicking he saved the rocket, the mission, and possible their lives. Finally, three days later Gemini 6A launched and caught up with Gemini 7 accomplishing the world's first rendezvous in space.

The cover pictured above is postmarked for the launch abort/second scrub date and again for the actual launch date.

Gemini 9 also had its share of scrubs. Originally set to launch on May 17, 1966 and to rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle, the launch was scrubbed when the Atlas rocket carrying the Agena suffered a failure and was destroyed. But NASA had learned a lesson from Gemini 6. They developed what was known as the Augmented Target Docking Adapter. This was a passive target for a spacecraft to dock with once in orbit. It had no propulsion system to boost its orbit like the Agena did but a mission could continue and practice rendezvous and docking and then preform EVAs.

On June 1, 1966, the ATDA was launched but the correct signals indicating that the fairing had separated were not received. This would prevent docking operations so NASA scrubbed the Gemini 9A launch to evaluate the situation. Gemini 9A was launched two days later and the crew found that the fairing had indeed not separated and said it looked like an angry alligator. Rendezvous and station keeping operations took place despite there being no docking.

The first cover pictured above is postmarked for the original scrub of Gemini 9 due to the Atlas failure and the second cover pictured is postmarked for the ATDA launch/second Gemini 9A scrub.

Not to be outdone, Apollo 9 also had a launch scrub. More of a postponement, the crew had contracted colds slightly before the scheduled launch date of Feb. 28. NASA chose to stand down for three days to let the crew recover and be in top physical shape for the very complicated and critical Apollo 9 flight to test the lunar module in Earth orbit.

The final cover is postmarked for the original launch date of Feb. 28. My dad used to get covers postmarked at places that were similar to the crew's surnames or vehicle names or landing sites. He must have asked to have the covers postmarked on Feb. 28 for the Apollo 9 launch. The postmaster simply followed what was asked for instead of holding the covers for the actual launch date. Makes for an interesting cover and story!

Do you have any other launch scrub covers? There were a number throughout the space shuttle program. Show us what you have!