1966-03-16, 10:40 am. Paul Haney in Houston. And we have a lift-off at three seconds, three seconds. Neil Armstrong reports the clock has started. Roll program is in, Armstrong says.

Twenty seconds into the flight, and Armstrong says the pitch program is in, 30 seconds into the flight. All clocks are in sync on the ground and in the spacecraft.

Forty-five seconds into the flight. Flight Dynamics says he looks good at the - Mark, 50-second mark. And Dave Scott gives us his first report, the cabin pressure at 5.7. Everything looks good, the distance now from the Cape about four miles, altitude 24 miles.

One minute and 30 seconds into the flight. The Flight Director has just been advised that thrust looks good.

Mark, 1 minute plus 40 seconds and the crew has advised that they look good. That digital command system update has been received in the spacecraft and Scott has depressed a little button on the right side which indicates to the ground that it was received.

Flight Dynamics says we are Go for staging, we are two minutes, 10 seconds into the flight. The ground gives Gemini 8 a Go for staging.

Two minutes and 32 seconds into the flight, the spacecraft now about 52 miles downrange and Armstrong says we have staging and second stage has ignited. Armstrong said they noted the staging and saw a little fireball behind them. Guidance looks good, we are now at 50 miles altitude. We are about 100 miles downrange. The Surgeon reports he's well satisfied with the values he's reading on both crewmen. Flight Dynamics says we are right down the middle, all the data agrees. The plots are an exact overlay of the planned values.

Three minutes and 50 seconds into the flight, and communications have been reasonably good, as sharp or sharper than we can recall on any past launch.

Four minutes into the flight. Flight Director has advised his controllers to stand by for a status checks. He's checking each one of them now. He's gotten a Go from all positions here in the Control Center.

Jim Lovell, our CapCom, has just advised Armstrong that he is Go from the ground. Downrange distance now about 280 miles, altitude 80 miles, and again Flight says we are right down the middle on our traces here.

Five minutes into the flight. Mark. 8 have achieved 80 percent of the velocity desired. We are now 85 miles high and Lovell assures Armstrong again that he looks very good here on the ground.

We have second stage cut-off, approximately 5 minutes, 40 seconds. Five minutes, 50 Seconds. In about 10 seconds the crew should initiate their thrusters, Flight Dynamics confirms again he is Go and Lovell is passing this up to the crew.

Six minutes, 5 seconds into the flight, and Armstrong advises they have completed their burn, they are free of the second stage.

Six minutes, 40 seconds into the flight and as yet we've heard no numbers on the orbit, but we believe it will be very close to the planned value. The Guidance Officer advises there was zero out-of-plane burn - absolutely no out-of-plane deviation. Flight Dynamics advises they should have some numbers for us on the orbit shortly but he advises the Flight Director that it looks nominal, which would make it a 146. We will stand by and get further confirmation on that. This is Gemini Control, Houston.

8 minutes, 30 seconds and the spacecraft is now out of the Bermuda acquisition zone. We may have further contact by Antigua. The Flight Dynamics Officer advises, based on the early data, the low speed data which will be refined, our initial orbit is 85 by 155 [nautical miles]. This will be rerun and analyzed and further data will be cranked into it and I am sure there will be refinements.

But at 9 minutes in the flight, it appears to have an acceptable orbit for the Gemini 8 spacecraft. Meanwhile we have racked up the conversation through the lift-off phase. The conversation begins at T-1 minute and while we are refining the data on the orbit, we will play that tape right now.