Gemini 11 Launch / AS 500F on Pad 39A 

From the NARA - footage is seemingly filmed in extra widescreen format Description in NARA is "Footage From Project Mercury Launch" I believe footage shows Gemini 11 crew walkout to transfer van, press site on the launch day, crew training for emergency egress from LC19, the Gemini 11 Agena pre-launch, footage of the Gemini 11 launch which is followed by views of a truck (smoke purpose unknown - chemical?) and views of the Apollo/Saturn 500F on launch pad 39A. Of all the footage I have found on the NARA site, this one is definitly "different". Comments welcomed on what your thoughts are - great footage though! Audio is NBC radio coverage of the Gemini 11 launch. There is a Patreon for anyone interested in supporting my channel - All donations go to enhancing future content - thanks in advance and it would be great to have you onboard. Patrons often receive pre-launch video access and media content www.patreon.com/user?u=54979908&fan_landing=true

I’m 67 and well remember being late for school so that I could watch those early morning Gemini launches! Thanks for the memories!

I'm almost 60, watching this makes me wish I had been born 20 years earlier ... fantastic.

My father piloted the recovery helo for Gemini 10 and 11. Thanks for the footage

At 63, I still remember the last Gemini launches. As a 5 year old nothing was cooler than a rocket launch! That might still be true.

Having grown up in Melbourne, I well recognize the pickup truck spewing the white fog. It is indeed a mosquito control vehicle. We used to run behind them, and play in the fog as they went through the neighborhood. Ah, those were the days...!

Thank you for posting this video. As a kid growing up in the 60s I followed the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs intensely and loved every moment. I really thought we would’ve gone back to the moon by now as I hurtle towards 70 years old!

Always loved the distinctive sound the Titan made at ignition

How fantastic that the radio commentator was giving a seminar on orbital mechanics!

Those scaffolding towers at 6:42 were 50ft tall camera platforms. We were still using those into the 1990s for Delta, Atlas and Titan launches.

Really interesting seeing the juxtaposition of Gemini and Saturn. Thank you LM5.

The truck was almost certainly spraying for mosquitos. We had trucks go through our neighborhood in New Orleans spraying for those little bloodsuckers. I'm sure they were just as bad down at the Cape. Awesome footage!

Titan/Gemini has to be the most sleek looking manned launches ever. Sort of like a sports car for space.

I remember watching this from my Central Florida elementary school yard watching this launch. Fun times!

Great footage! I just love the screeching sound of the turbopumps on the Titan II's Aerojet LR87 main engines make when they are ignited. Also, the view of the gantries down Missile Row was pretty cool. The Gemini 11 countdown rehearsal test and the crew boarding the M-113 was interesting.

I'm 70 and watched every televised launch I could. The "smoke truck" was likely DDT since there are a few mosquitoes in Florida. Nearly wiped out the Raptors but they're back now.

Ahhh...the AS-500F paint scheme... responsible for messing up soooo many modelists over the years (including my parents as they put together the Revell 1:96 Saturn V model for my Christmas 1969 present!)

As always great stuff from and for the archives... really love the Gemini stuff, very rare, especially the audio from NBC -Jim

The sporty rocket and a great ride, as reported by James Lovell.

Nice find! With the folk in the foreground just prior to launch, you get the scale of it all in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before.

Three in a row. Now you're spoiling us. Also liked the recent Apollo 12 previews.

Just outstanding. This is a real gem! I could watch this type of footage all day.

Love this Apollo 11 quality footage Simon!

Thanks for sharing this video, I remember watching several launches as a kid in Tucson, Arizona on the families Black and White TV. Back then I didn’t realize that the Titan missiles were all around our city for a much different mission run by the US Air Force. The only remaining one is still sitting watch as a museum just 14 miles down the road, that’s one launch I glad never happened. Have a great day!

Thank you for finding and taking the time to share this footage. Very much appreciated from the UK. I'm so glad that when my son is old enough to care, I can show him all the footage you've made so accessible.

I worked in the shop where the Geminee capsule was built but this was a few years after the project was finished. Everyone said Geminee back then. The McDonnell Aircraft Co. was a great place for a young guy to get his start in the business.

I was ill that day and watched it as it happened laying on the couch.

Good stuff, Thank you

Audio is from NBC TV coverage with Frank McGee and David Brinkley.

In this moment, Gemini 11 represented the present era of the space program while SA-500F stood for the future… The future that would be built on the lessons learned from the Gemini program.

As soon as I saw the aspect ratio of the footage, I twigged that I'd seen it somewhere before. As brianbrumley6441 mentioned earlier, this is Panavision footage shot for the movie 'Countdown' (1967), which told the story of a race to try and beat the Russians to the Moon using a modified Gemini spacecraft. I've just skipped through the copy I have, and the shots are identical. The crew walk-out footage was used for the scene where the single astronaut for the flight (played by James Caan) heads to the transfer van. They had to zoom in on the image so that we clearly see Pete Conrad getting aboard, but Dick Gordon is kept out of shot. Thanks for posting Simon.

The sound of titan turbopump is incredible😊

Curious footage. Perhaps a test of 65mm cameras which were used during the Apollo 11 launch and eventually was utilized in the CNN documentary released in theatres for the 50th anniversary of the flight?

Nice video 👍🏻 🚀

Gracias!!

This happened on September 12th 1966, Gemini 11 returned on September 16th. The Saturn V in the background was a test of the mobile launch platform, it was Apollo 3 which got scrubbed. The Ford crew cab truck was spraying DDT to kill mosquitos.

Very cool stuff... Looks to be B-roll footage from a Hollywood movie. Curious what that pickup truck is spewing out the back,...Insect repellent? Maybe the mosquitos were bad that season at the Cape....Thanks again!

A very fast and high G launch vehicle.

Poor guy on NBC. There was only one Walter Cronkite. I always watched CBS during the space flights because of him.

The Flying Men's Bathroom! Conrad suggested he and Gordon could get away with a lunar circumnavigation, but that Gemini shield could not handle a direct re-entry. The duo still holds the altitude record for crewed Earth orbit.

Hear that fuel turbopump?? WOOooooOOOOP!

Whoooooooooop!

Nice

The thumbnail is way cool. The Gemini on the pad, and off in the distance a Saturn V (might have been the plug in mockup, or 4 or 6 not sure which). Way, way cool.

Having lived my youth in a mosquito-infested area and having seen plenty of trucks like that, wouldn’t be surprised if it were spraying for mosquitoes. 🙂

What was that truck venting at the end?

I’ve never seen an M113 tracked vehicle used as astronaut transport before. Does anyone know why that was used and when it stopped. BTW, another excellent upload.

what was going on at the 8:47 mark on the ground at 39A?

Now, I know where I saw this footage…. It was shown as the launch footage from the movie “Countdown”!

I wonder if that is Deke Slayton coming out after the astronauts?

NARA is a nest of vipers these days.

Nasa: Good news - you're going to space. Bad news - you're getting to your spaceship in an ice cream truck.

Wasn't that a mosquito truck, at the end?

That's when they used to spray DDT for mosquitos and insects and eagle egg shells. Peace!

The launch vehicle at 6:06 does not appear to be the same type as the one shown launching....?

This looks to be a preview of a complete video, eh lunarmodual5? Lol

Is that the Apollo 4 at the end

Test article Saturn V

you know i have a idea that being you should do a ASTP apollo Soyuz test project live like docking and launch's

Which launch pad? 20 plus maybe?

What's wrong with that car at 8:50 ?

Was that going to be the Apollo 4 Saturn V?

NASA still uses M113s to rescue astronauts.

September 12, 1966

Now I know which Gemini launch was used in _You Only Live Twice._ For whatever reason, they used it to depict a SOVIET launch, even though themovie opens with a Gemini spacecraft in orbit (referred to as Jupiter 16). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3ftN0zqHtn0.html

Is it me, or did NASA allow people to film from a ridiculously close range?

I wonder why the astronauts were sped away in an M113 like that while all those white helmets stood around watching.

“Gemini 11 asf (AS500F)”

WTF why were the astronauts driven around in 2 separate armoured personnel carriers?

So many clips that are unrelated to the narrative

🌼 🖤 ♦ 🔘 🚀

The truck at 8:43 is possibly a mosquito fogger to kill mosquitoes. 🦟🦟🦟

As always great stuff from and for the archives... really love the Gemini stuff, very rare, especially the audio from NBC -Jim