Smithsonian Voices

From the Smithsonian Museums

Michael J. Neufeld

Michael J. Neufeld is curator for rockets and missiles in the National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Department, and is the author of The Rocket and the Reich (1995) and Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (2007), among other works.

Gemini VIII’s Near-Disaster

On March 16, 1966, the Gemini Vlll astronauts faced the first life-threatening, in-flight emergency in the short history of the U.S. human spaceflight program.