Frank Borman Autographed Photos
Borman flew two flights while at NASA. He is one of just five astronauts to fly a first mission as a Commander (the others being James McDivitt, Gerald Carr, Neil Armstrong,and Joe Engle). He commanded Gemini 7 in 1965 with astronaut Jim Lovell. This was the long-endurance flight of the Gemini program, staying in orbit for fourteen days. The mission also featured the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 6A. (Gemini 7 was passive while Gemini 6A was active in the rendezvous.) Borman's second flight was as commander of the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. He flew with James Lovell again, and also with Bill Anders. The mission was originally planned as a Saturn V-powered "Large Earth Orbit" mission to test tracking and communication, but this was changed into the first lunar orbit mission. Apollo 8 went into lunar orbit and made ten orbits of the Moon in December 1968. This was a springboard in NASA's moon landing on July 20, 1969 with Apollo 11.


