--- title: SpaceX's Launch Continues What Gemini Astronauts Started description: The launch of the latest SpaceX crew came on the anniversary of the return of the last Gemini crew. The new ship has a lot to live up to. canonical: https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-11-16T20:10:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:55:34.506Z article:section: Science og:title: SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started og:description: It's all about repeated, reliable, safe space travel og:url: https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt25ee1617b296bfe9/698a145f8fd2ee3c1b361fa0/nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020-e1605560720512.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started twitter:description: It's all about repeated, reliable, safe space travel twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt25ee1617b296bfe9/698a145f8fd2ee3c1b361fa0/nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020-e1605560720512.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started  by [Jeffrey Kluger](/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 16, 2020 8:10 PM CUT  A view of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from UCF Knight's Spectrum Stadium on Nov. 15 in Orlando, Fla. A view of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from UCF Knight's Spectrum Stadium on Nov. 15 in Orlando, Fla.Conor Kvatek—Collegiate Images/Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 16, 2020 8:10 PM CUT We’re not sure if Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were watching Sunday when SpaceX’s _Crew Dragon_ lifted off from Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral for its first fully operational mission—but the odds are pretty good that they were. Astronauts from past eras of space travel tend to keep up with the doings in the modern one. Either way, the overall audience for the launch was big—NASA’s site carried it live, as did the cable news channels. But of all the people who were watching, it was Lovell and Aldrin whose attention would be the most important, or at least the most poignant. Fifty-four years earlier to the day, in 1966, the pair splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Turks and Caicos after a nearly four day, 59-orbit mission in their _Gemini 12_ spacecraft. The flight was close to flawless. The crew successfully docked with an uncrewed Agena spacecraft, and Aldrin logged more than five hours outside the _Gemini_ over the course of three separate spacewalks. The tenth and final flight of the Gemini series, it was by any measure a perfect capstone. “In 10 manned Gemini missions since March, 1965,” read [the next day’s New York _Times_,](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/11/16/issue.html "undefined") “Gemini astronauts demonstrated their ability to rendezvous and link up with target vehicles, fire a target Agena’s rocket to climb to a record altitude, fly for 14 days without any ill effects and bring their crafts to precise landings.”  Astronauts James A. Lovell Jr. (left), command pilot, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., pilot, receive official welcome as they arrive aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp. Gemini-12 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean recovery area at 2:21 p.m. (EST), Nov. 15, 1966. NASA All of those achievements were essential dress rehearsals for getting astronauts to and from the moon. But the success of the Gemini program was as much about hardware as it was about piloting acumen. Those 10 flights over the course of 20 months factored out to one crewed mission every eight weeks, with Geminis rolling off the assembly line at McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis, getting mounted atop their Titan boosters and rocketing into space with a regularity that was unimaginable only a few years earlier. SpaceX is aiming to achieve a similar gas-up-and-go capability—and in some ways it already has, with more than 100 launches in its various fleet of rockets since 2010\. But only two so far have been crewed: the current four-person mission, and the first, experimental one, which carried two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) back in May. Because space station crews stay aloft for six months at a time, there is no need for the company to match Gemini’s pace. But with crew members’ lives on the line, it is very much aiming for the same reliability—a thought echoed by outgoing NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine after this weekend’s launch. “This is another historic moment,” he said. “\[But\] make no mistake: Vigilance is always required on every flight.” NASA learned that lesson in the worst of all possible ways just over two months after _Gemini 12’s_ successful return, when the _Apollo 1_ astronauts died in a launch pad fire early in the evening of Jan. 27, 1967\. At the moment the men were killed, Lovell and a contingent of other astronauts were at the White House, mingling with dignitaries celebrating the ratification of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bound signatory nations to keep weapons of mass destruction out of space, to refrain from militarizing the moon or other celestial bodies and to render aid to other countries’ astronauts in distress. Just three years after that tragic evening, Lovell himself was very much in distress, when the _Apollo 13_ spacecraft he was commanding suffered a crippling explosion en route to the moon, nearly claiming the lives of another Apollo crew. Space—as people say over and over—is hard, but the shopworn nature of the phrase makes it no less true. Nov. 15, 2020 was a very, very good day for SpaceX and the nation as a whole. We will need many more good days to see that space continues to be explored routinely, reliably and, far and away most importantly, safely. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/"},"headline":"SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started","datePublished":"2020-11-16T20:10:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:55:34.506Z","description":"It's all about repeated, reliable, safe space travel","url":"https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt25ee1617b296bfe9/698a145f8fd2ee3c1b361fa0/nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020-e1605560720512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt25ee1617b296bfe9/698a145f8fd2ee3c1b361fa0/nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020-e1605560720512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"nasa-space-x-launch-nov-15-2020","caption":"A view of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from UCF Knight's Spectrum Stadium on Nov. 15 in Orlando, Florida","creditText":"Conor Kvatek—Collegiate Images/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5912411/spacex-crewed-launch-nasa/","name":"SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started"}}]}] ```