[Gemini IX-A] Portrait of Thomas Stafford admiring the beauty of space through...

[Gemini IX-A] Portrait of Thomas Stafford admiring the beauty of space through the capsule's window, with floating camera on board. Eugene Cernan, 3–7 June 1966. Printed 1966. Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-66–38080]. 20.3×25.4 cm (8×10 in), numbered “NASA S-66–38080” in red top margin, with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso (NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas).

Literature: TIME, 17 June 1966, p. 48; The View from Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962–1972, Schick and Van Haaften, p.62.

An extremely rare in-flight photograph of Gemini IX-A Command Pilot Thomas Stafford, one of the earliest portraits of a human being in space.

Cernan took the photograph with the SuperWide Hasselblad EVA camera and its 38mm lens after he safely got back inside the spacecraft following his arduous EVA. Stafford is looking through his Command Pilot left window of the spacecraft. A motion picture camera is floating in the weightless environment of the capsule.

“When you were photographing inside the Gemini spacecraft you had to wiggle down and photograph through a very small window. It was like looking through a tunnel.” Eugene Cernan (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 13).

Condition Report:Excellent condition.

Please notice: Supplementary material not included.

Category:Photos ▸ Vintage photographs