First Gemini Astronauts Large Signed Color Photograph, 11" x 13.75", matted to 15.5" x 19.25". Picturing a model of the Gemi...

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First Gemini Astronauts Large Signed Color Photograph, 11" x 13.75", matted to 15.5" x 19.25". Picturing a model of the Gemini capsule, signed on the mat: "Neil Armstrong," "Frank Borman," "John Young," "Tom Stafford," "Charles Conrad Jr.," "James A McDivitt," "James Lovell," "Elliot See," and "Edward H. White II." On September 17, 1962, at NASA headquarters in Houston, these nine men were introduced as new astronauts, the first to be chosen since the original Mercury astronauts were named in 1959. The photo has faded a bit and the mat is foxed and soiled at the left edge, affecting the signatures of See and White. Selected as the command pilot for the Gemini 9 flight, Elliot See was killed on February 28, 1966, in St. Louis, Missouri, in the crash of a T-38 aircraft, three months before his scheduled flight. Pilot of Gemini 4 (1965) and the first American to walk in space, Edward H. White II was named as one of the pilots of the first 3-man Apollo flight. He was killed on January 27, 1967, in the Apollo 1 spacecraft flash fire during a launch pad test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A Snoopy "Eyes on the Stars" sticker has been affixed at the lower right. Perhaps the scarcest signed astronaut group photograph in existence, and the first we've ever seen, this signed image is rarer than the highly sought after Project Mercury group photo. The nine astronauts signed this photograph for Joe Garino while training at the physical conditioning lab. Armstrong (Apollo 11), Conrad (Apollo 12), and Young (Apollo 16) later walked on the moon. Framed to 17.5" x 21.75". From the collection of renowned former physical trainer of the astronauts Joe Garino. This lot is accompanied by a signed certificate of authentication from Garino verifying its provenance.