Conrad and Gordon dock with the Agena before they've finished one lap of Earth

NASA had never attempted a rendezvous this fast. On September 12, 1966, astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon launched aboard Gemini 11 and chased down an unmanned Agena Target Vehicle before completing a single orbit, docking with it just 1 hour and 34 minutes after liftoff. The direct-ascent rendezvous was the mission's headline objective, a technique NASA needed to prove could work under time pressure. Over the next three days, the docked spacecraft climbed higher than any crewed vehicle had flown…