In a project of Herculean proportions, British author and historian Andy Saunders has returned to the NASA archives to follow up his epic “Apollo Remastered” photographic book from 2022 to create and curate another absorbing volume of digitally remastered and restored space images.
Published Sept. 2, 2025, by Black Dog & Leventhal, “Gemini and Mercury Remastered” is a lavish 320-page, large-format companion hardback containing hundreds of crystal-clear photos with explanatory captions of astronauts and their spacecraft as they paved a perilous path 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 Space.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.”
For this outing, Saunders took a step back in time to chronicle humankind’s primitive efforts to leave Earth by focusing on the manned Project Mercury and Gemini programs that launched from 1961 to 1966. These baby steps became crucial to the success of the later Apollo missions, which resulted in NASA landing two men on the surface 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 type of personality and fortitude to sift through the NASA archives to select this remarkable collection of restored images that represents our nascent endeavors into orbit, and Saunders admits that the three-year task did require a huge amount of obsessive energy.
“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.”
In addition to presenting some of the most stunning images of the Earth ever taken, “Gemini and Mercury Remastered” highlights a constellation of groundbreaking accomplishments like the first American in space (Alan Shepard), the first American to orbit Earth (John Glenn), the first food eaten in space (apple sauce in a pouch), the first U.S. spacewalk (Ed White), the first photo of a human in space, and the highest Earth orbit ever achieved until it was eventually surpassed in 2024.
“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 famed 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 adds. “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.”
Saunders wants to emphasize that absolutely no artificial intelligence was involved in remastering and restoring these NASA images and that ‘no pixels were harmed’ in the making of this monumental 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 risks because the U.S. was trying to catch the Soviets to win the space race, so looking back through today’s health and safety lens, it’s simply amazing. Reading the transcripts and the things that happened: like when Neil Armstrong almost died when his Gemini 8 spacecraft tumbled out of control, or Gene Cernan almost dying on his spacewalk. They just went, ‘well, let’s try again.’ We do live in an age that’s obsessed with speed and convenience, and taking AI shortcuts and social media. These missions are a reminder that true legacy comes from doing hard things that matter. And it can be messy. These missions were solving life-or-death problems in real time, but they did it. It’s a reminder of what we can still achieve if we dream big, act with purpose, accept uncertainty, and trust our finest human qualities.”
Andy Saunders’ “Gemini and Mercury Remastered” is available now from both the Apollo Remastered website and Amazon.
