Buzz Aldrin's amazing view flying in his spacecraft with the hatch open

This is the nose of the Gemini XII spacecraft as photographed by Buzz Aldrin. He was standing up on his seat with his hatch open while orbiting at 8,000 meters per second 188 miles over the Earth. I wish I was able to imagine the sensation of what this felt like. This is how it looked from the outside.

This is Buzz Aldrin standing up on Gemini XII, with the Agena rendezvous vehicle on the background. Agena was used as a target spaceship to test the orbital rendezvous technique that was needed to go to the Moon in the Apollo missions—a technique that Aldrin himself developed in his "Manned Orbital Rendezvous" thesis, which earned him a Doctorate of Science in Astronautics by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This publicity photo gives a better idea of the proportions and posture.

Buzz Aldrin's amazing view flying in his spacecraft with the hatch open

Aldrin established a Extra-Vehicular Activity record at the time, demonstrating for the first time that humans could do actual work floating in space without risking their lives.

Buzz Aldrin's amazing view flying in his spacecraft with the hatch open