Flown by Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott, and part of the space collection at work. You can see the scorched upper section from the heat of reentry.
“The mission conducted the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit, but suffered the first critical in-space system failure of a U.S. spacecraft which threatened the lives of the astronauts and required immediate abort of the mission. The only other time this happened was on the flight of Apollo 13.”
“Gemini starting tumbling end-over-end more rapidly. NASA turned off the squawk box at Armstrong’s home, alarming his wife. By now the tumble rate had reached one revolution per second, blurring the astronauts’ vision and threatening loss of consciousness or vertigo. Armstrong decided to shut down the OAMS and use the Re-entry Control System (RCS) thrusters to stop the tumble. Scott later praised Armstrong’s actions as their spacecraft spun: “The guy was brilliant. He knew the system so well. He found the solution, he activated the solution, under extreme circumstances … it was my lucky day to be flying with him.” — Wikipedia
This was the second space mishap for the “First Man”. Earlier his X-15 rocket plane bounced off the atmosphere on reentry and almost ended up at LAX.
This artifact from the mission comes from the personal collection of Gemini Program Office special assistant and longtime NASA employee, Paul M. Sturtevant.
And here is a test block with a description of how the honeycomb heat shield was manufactured and applied directly to the 
Leave a Reply