#af-arps

60 years ago... Frank Borman April 3, 1963 USAF Major NASA astronaut Frank Borman visited the Martin Marietta company which built the Titan launch vehicle for the Gemini program. The Titan was based on the military ICBM rocket and was used for 10 manned Gemini missions between March 1965 and November 1966. Note Frank Borman wore his personal Rolex Oyster perpetual, a pilot watch he had been wearing since his test pilot training days at USAF Flight Test School - class 60C. (Photo: NASA)

60 years ago: NASA Astronaut group 2 1963, September 17 NASA announced the “The New Nine” augmenting the original “Mercury Seven” astronauts. Also known as “The Next Nine”, group 2  was first group that included civilian test pilots (Neil Armstrong & Elliot See). Apart from Elliot See and Edward White, who were respectively killed in a February 1966 T-38 crash and in the  January 1967 Apollo fire, all pilots went on to command Gemini and Apollo missions. A great birthday gift to Thomas Stafford (92 years today) who went on to fly on 2 Gemini missions, Apollo 10 (1969) and Apollo-Soyuz (1975), accumulating 21 days 3 hours in space. In 1979 USAF General Thomas Stafford became an Omega ambassador and board member of Omega SA American executive committee. Note that Frank Borman was wearing his Rolex Oyster which he already wore at AF-ARPS class 60C while Neil Armstrong wore his Accutron GMT which he already wore as a civilian test pilot at Edwards in 1962. (Photo: NASA S62-6759).