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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Skyman, post: 2111890, member: 28299&quot;]Fifty years ago today, 3/23/65, the first manned Gemini spacecraft, Gemini 3, flew.&nbsp; The crew was commander Gus Grissom and pilot John Young.&nbsp; Up until that time all the significant space &quot;Firsts&quot; were owned by the Soviet Union... first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, etc. etc.&nbsp; During the Gemini 3 mission the crew performed the first significant US space &quot;First&quot;, the changing of the spacecraft&#039;s orbit.&nbsp; Up until that time the Soviet and US spacecraft could only change their attitude in space, e.g. rotate around their X, Y and Z axis.&nbsp; Gemini 3 moved from one orbital plane to another.</p><p><br /></p><p>Probably the most famous of all space flown coinage are the 100 dimes Gus Grissom flew with him on Liberty Bell 7.&nbsp; On landing on the ocean, that spacecraft filled with water and sank.&nbsp; Grissom was quite chastened by that experience, and called Gemini 3 Molly Brown.&nbsp; Furthermore he decided to bring much less coinage with him on Gemini 3, bringing basically only one coin of each denomination then in production (I am not sure whether that included a half dollar).&nbsp; After the mission while sitting together with John Young and Guenter Wendt (the so-called pad fuhrer... the head of the launch tower white room who basically made sure the spacecraft was ready to fly, and placed the crew in the ship prior to launch), Grissom was hammering GT-3 (the T stands for Titan, the rocket for the Gemini craft) into the dime with his knife.&nbsp; John Young said that he ought to give Wendt the dime and Grissom did so.&nbsp; Several years ago I bought the dime to add to the Liberty Bell 7 one I have.&nbsp; So, I have the only complete set of Grissom flown space dimes in existence.&nbsp; Here it is (you&#039;ll see the GT-3 just under the L in LIBERTY on the obverse):</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m246/SkyMan58/SpaceRelated/GT3obv5BIGsm.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /><img src="http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m246/SkyMan58/SpaceRelated/GT3rev16.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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