On Jan. 3, 1962, the newly announced Mercury Mark II project was renamed Project Gemini. This artist’s concept of a two-person Gemini spacecraft in flight shows a cutaway view. Gemini paved the way for Apollo, and had four main goals: to test an astronaut’s ability to fly long-duration missions (up to two weeks in space);…

“Can you identify this river?” asked astronaut Mark Vande Hei currently stationed aboard the International space Station. It’s the Amazon River. “The views up here never get old, especially Sun glinting off the water,” he added. Sixty years ago, scientists were unsure whether Earth’s surface could be seen clearly from space. Many thought that the…