"tom stafford and wally schirra, both from the naval academy." "in gemini 7, i was from the naval academy but frank borman was west point so as we rendezvoused and we got nose to nose, tom stafford put up a little sign that said beat army. i took the picture, and we figured it was highest beat army rally known to man." "that was a major, major breakthrough." "you can't go to the moon without doing that. it's not possible." "once they got that then i thought okay, alright, maybe it can be done." "we're basically, they were launching flights every six weeks. they flew gemini 3 in '65, and the program ends at the end of '66. by now we've lapped the soviets. we've demonstrated capabilities that they don't have." "at the end of gemini, we had done all those things required to go to the moon - rendezvous, docking, extra- vehicular activity, long- duration flight." "gemini's finished. you know, we're doing great. we know what we're doing. now we're gonna take this huge step in function up to apollo, which is far more complicated." "i thought that that w