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Astronaut Ed White on the conceal of Andy Saunders’ “Gemini and Mercury Remastered”
(Image credit: Dusky Dog & Leventhal)
In a project of Herculean proportions, British author and historian Andy Saunders has returned to the NASA archives to practice up his epic “Apollo Remastered” photographic book from 2022 to gain and curate another absorbing volume of digitally remastered and restored dwelling photos.
Revealed Sept. 2, 2025, by Dusky Dog & Leventhal, “Gemini and Mercury Remastered” is a lavish 320-web page, excellent-format accomplice hardback containing a full bunch of crystal-certain photos with explanatory captions of astronauts and their spacecraft as they paved a deadly direction to the stars.
“The processing on this book was a bit quicker since they ‘only’ took 5,000 photographs on these projects, as opposed to 35,000 on Apollo,” Saunders tells Plot.com. “But the research took as long as the processing because the historic record is so patchy when you go that far back. It was an enormous task. I hope people take the time to read it.”
“Gemini and Mercury Remastered” is on the market at bookstores and all online retailers now (Image credit: Dusky Dog & Leventhal)
For this outing, Saunders took a step aid in time to legend humankind’s veteran efforts to plod away Earth by focusing on the manned Undertaking Mercury and Gemini programs that launched from 1961 to 1966. These minute one steps grew to develop into well-known to the success of the later Apollo missions, which resulted in NASA landing two men on the floor of the moon on July 20, 1969.
“I wanted to tell the full story because the human drama that unfolded was incredible, and I wanted to get that launch-to-splashdown sequence down so we could cover the whole missions. Look at the images, turn the page, read the caption, and follow along. It’s often seen as a photo book, as is ‘Apollo Remastered,’ but the objective is also to tell these stories, not only the technical achievements.”
It takes a certain kind of persona and fortitude to sift by map of the NASA archives to make a replacement this outstanding collection of restored photos that represents our nascent endeavors into orbit, and Saunders admits that the three-year assignment did require a huge quantity of obsessive energy.
A fair looking Earthly panorama shot from the Gemini 12 mission (Image credit: Dusky Dog & Leventhal)
“Processing was probably about a year to a year-and-a-half,” he notes. “There’s so many criteria. It could just be a visually stunning photograph. It might be historically significant moments. It might be poignant shots of the astronauts. Or it’s one that’s required to tell the story. There’s even a page where there’s no photograph and it’s on Gemini 10. When Michael Collins lost his camera. That’s the only spacewalk ever not captured on film. But I wanted to tell the story of his spacewalk because it’s just unbelievable what happened. So there’s a blank page. No photograph.”
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In addition to presenting some of the most stunning photos of the Earth ever taken, “Gemini and Mercury Remastered” highlights a constellation of groundbreaking accomplishments esteem the first American in dwelling (Alan Shepard), the first American to orbit Earth (John Glenn), the first food eaten in dwelling (apple sauce in a pouch), the first U.S. spacewalk (Ed White), the first photo of a human in dwelling, and the top Earth orbit ever completed except it became as soon as at remaining surpassed in 2024.
Astronaut John Glenn during his harrowing reentry for Mercury-Atlas 6. (Image credit: Dusky Dog & Leventhal)
“It wasn’t a chore,” Saunders admits. “I do love to do it. And with the imagery it’s like when an archaeologist pushes the dust off of something and finds something that’s been hidden for so long. And these are such important moments in history. It is quite an addictive process as well.”
Some of the more incredible HD transfers are of distinguished astronaut Jim Lovell peering out of his Gemini 7 capsule window, taken from frames captured in NASA’s original 16mm film reel.
“That’s so fascinating to see someone through the window,” Saunders provides. “And he actually said he was kind of quite nervous when he looked out the window because they got to within inches of each other at 17,500 miles an hour. This was the first-ever rendezvous in space, and they didn’t mess about. They just did it. Yes, they took some risks they wouldn’t take today. Gene Krantz said it was often just blind luck that got them home.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell takes a survey outside during his Gemini 7 mission (Image credit: Dusky Dog & Leventhal)
Saunders needs to emphasize that completely no artificial intelligence became as soon as involved in remastering and restoring these NASA photos and that ‘no pixels had been harmed’ in the making of this huge book.
“This historically important imagery, if you apply AI, all the provenance is gone. You can call it a piece of art if you’d like, but it’s not a photo.
“They took such extraordinary dangers because the U.S. became as soon as trying to regain the Soviets to win the dwelling escape, so looking aid by map of at the present time’s health and security lens, it is simply amazing. Reading the transcripts and the things that came about: esteem when Neil Armstrong almost died when his Gemini 8 spacecraft tumbled out of adjust, or Gene Cernan almost dying on his spacewalk. They correct went, ‘correctly, let’s try again.’ We develop reside in an age that is obsessed on tempo and convenience, and taking AI shortcuts and social media. These missions are a reminder that sincere legacy comes from doing laborious things that topic.
