Inspired by listening at great length to a box set of NASA recordings while making some of my Voice On Record radio shows for Resonance FM, and later from hearing Ben Burtt's edited version of the sound recordings from the booster stages of a Space Shuttle launch, I wrote instructions a structured improvisation piece. This was written for my ensemble "Grey Area" and pretty much follows the mission timeline of Gemini 8, using minutes instead of hours. This mission was piloted by Neil Armstrong and was the first attempt at docking two spaceships in orbit. It didn't go particularly well and the mission had to be aborted early. The pressure that these guys were under to do impossible things must have been incredible. There's a lot of this stuff that isn't in the general consciousness but is still capable of leaving you dumbfounded.

This piece received its premiere in April 2014 at the McEwan Hall, Edinburgh.