Liftoff of Gemini 3

Gemini 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral, carrying Gus Grissom and John Young on the first crewed Gemini flight, nicknamed 'Molly Brown' by Grissom after his Liberty Bell 7 capsule sank on splashdown four years earlier. During the three-orbit mission, Grissom became the first astronaut to manually change a spacecraft's orbit, a maneuver essential to the rendezvous techniques NASA would need for the Moon landings.