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3-2-1 5x02 "Las Vegas" ★★★★★★★★☆☆

60 years ago... Gemini X 1966, July 18-21, during the 2 days 22 hours long Gemini X mission, USAF Capt Michael Collins performed two EVAs to retrieve experiments from the Gemini spacecraft and the Agena Target Vehicle in Low Earth Orbit. Michael Collins got the nickname "Magellan" as he had trained extensively to use the handheld sextant to perform some celestial navigation exercises. Unfortunately he lost his 70mm Hasselblad camera so there're no photos of his umbilical EVA. He had chosen to wear the NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster 105.003-63 underneath the Gemini pressure suit, the first NASA astronaut to do so. US Navy LCdr John Young, who was the very first to wear a NASA-issued Speedmaster (be it a NASA tests "survivor" chronograph), made his second spaceflight and it was his wife Barbara who had drawn the mission logo. (Photos: NASA)

July 14, 1966… Gemini X the 8th two-men mission 60 years ago, KSC Florida, John Young and Michael Collins during final flight plan review for the Agena-Gemini X RV-mission US Naval LCdr John Young had flown on Gemini III and USAF Capt Michael Collins, a United States Military Academy - West Point Class 1952 graduate, had been backup for Gemini VII. While John Young was the very first to use a NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster, be it a 105.003-63 survivor of the NASA tests, Michael Collins wore a NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster April 1966 onwards. Interestingly, Collins always prefered a smaller wrist watch and during the Gemini X mission, Collins wore the NASA-issued Speedmaster on a leather bund-type strap underneath the David Clark space suit. Collins performed a 49-minutes long stand-up EVA (torso outside spacecraft) and an umbilical EVA-spacewalk to retrieve experiments from the Agena Target Vehicle. Collins main task was to perform celestial navigation with a handheld sextant. During his two spaceflight missions, Gemini X and Apollo 11, USAF MajGeneral Michael Collins accumulated 11 days 2 hours in space before leaving NASA in January 1970. During the Apollo program, several astronauts wore an extra wrist watch underneath the spacesuit and by the turn-of-the-century wearing the Speedmaster X-33 underneath the suit became standard practise for ISS-bound spacefarers. (Photos: NASA)

July 10, remembering USAF MajGeneral Joseph “Joe” Engle In the mid-1950s, a young Joe Engle learned to fly while working a summer job at Cessna Aircraft. He received his USAF pilot wings in 1958. After 4 years in an operational fighter squadron, Joe Engle became a test pilot flying the hypersonic flight research X-15 rocket-aircraft, making 16 flights in this remarkable experimental aircraft. Being selected in 1966 as a NASA astronaut, supporting Apollo 10 & 14. Thus far, Engle remains one of two people to have flown into space on two different types of winged vehicles, the X-15 and the space shuttle orbiter, totalling 250 hours in space. In total, between 1965 and 1986, US Air Force MajGeneral Joe Engle had ten official portraits, in three of which he wore his NASA-issued Speedmaster 105.003 chronograph (e.g. S86-26417). Note the running chronograph in each of these portraits! 2024, July 10 Joe Engle passed away aged 91… (Photos: NASA)

3-2-1 4x14 "Railways" ★★★★★★★★☆☆