Sixty years ago today, on March 23, 1965, a Titan 2 rocket launched into space NASA astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and John Young inside their Gemini III capsule, kicking off the first two-manned, Earth-orbiting spaceflight of the Gemini Program. Gemini III (GT-3 or Gemini Titan 3) was the first US capsule launched with two astronauts onboard. The Gemini Program was conceived as an intermediate step between the one-manned Mercury and three-manned Apollo Programs. The program was developed to determine astronauts’ reaction to long duration flights, to develop the rendezvous and docking methods that would later be used in the Apollo Program, and to establish and perfect landing and reentry techniques. Gus Grissom had piloted the second Mercury flight “Liberty Bell 7” on July 21, 1961 and would later be named to serve as command pilot for the Apollo 1 mission, the first 3-manned Apollo flight. Tragically, Grissom and fellow crew members Ed White and Roger Chaffee perished in a flash fire inside the Apollo capsule during ground testing on January 27, 1967.