3 June 1965: USAF Major Edward H. White Becomes First American To Walk In Space

Gemini IV was the second manned space flight in NASA's Project Gemini series, occurring 3-7 June 1965. I had just completed the sixth grade and was home during the day for the summer, so I watched the entire mission unfold on black-and-white television. I was fascinated and mesmerized, to say the least

It was the tenth manned American spaceflight (the Mercury program preceded the Gemini program), including two X-15 flights at altitudes exceeding 50 nautical miles (nmi). For the interested reader, the X-15 was carried aloft underneath the wing of a B-52 bomber aircraft in a captive-carry fashion, as per the particular B-52 model's stores management and loadout specifications,

until it was jettisoned under stringent safe separation guidelines at the specified altitude.

Once safe separation was achieved, the X-15 would transition to ownship-powered flight so as to conserve fuel to achieve high-speed and high-altitude specifications of the desired X-15 missions and flight plans.

Americans, as well as the world, were very excited over the United States Space Program events to date that would eventually land a Man on the Moon, and return him safely to the Earth, before the Decade of the 1960s was out, as President Kennedy had directed in 1961.

On 3 June 1965, Gemini IV

was launched from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, FL aboard a Titan II rocket.

Astronauts James McDivitt

and Edward H. White, II

circled the Earth sixty-six (66) times in four days (3-7 June 1965),

making Gemini IV the first U.S. flight to approach the five-day flight of the Soviet Vostok 5 that commenced on 20 June 1963.

The highlight of the Gemini IV mission (McDivitt in Seat 1, White in Seat 2 in the figure below)

was the first-ever space walk by an American, during which Ed White - 120 miles above the Earth - stepped outside the capsule and floated free outside the spacecraft,

while tethered to it, for approximately twenty minutes. White controlled his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun.

These accomplishments helped the United States overcome the Soviet Union's early lead in the Space Race.

As a space walker, White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A. Leonov,

a Soviet cosmonaut who, on 18 March 1965, became the first Human to walk in space,

and nearly lost his life in doing so. His mission mate was another Soviet cosmonaut named Pavel Belyayev.

Once Leonov stepped outside the capsule, his spacesuit inflated too much for him to be able to use the chest-mounted camera to record his activities outside the capsule, as he could not reach the camera’s shutter-switch on his thigh.

"My suit was becoming deformed. My hands had slipped out of the gloves [and] my feet came out of the boots. The suit felt loose around my body. I had to do something. I couldn’t pull myself back using the cord. And what’s more, with this misshapen suit, it would be impossible to fit through the airlock.”

Leonov did a remarkable job of saving the lives of Belyayev and him, as he was about to be afflicted by "the bends" that a lot of inexperienced deep-sea divers are affected by if they ascend too quickly. Leonov, his mission mate Belyayev, and the spacecraft crashed in a Soviet forest, but the two cosmonauts lived to tell about it and to venture into space several more times over the next few decades.

In July of 1975, on his second journey into space, Leonov commanded Soyuz 19, which docked with the Apollo spacecraft for the first Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

Implemented at the height of the Space Race rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, NASA’s Gemini program

was the least famous of the three U.S.-manned space programs conducted during the 1960s. However, as an extension of Project Mercury,

which launched Alan Shepard, the first American in space, in 1961,

Gemini laid the groundwork for the more dramatic Project Apollo lunar missions, which began in 1968.

The Gemini space flights were the first to involve multiple crews, and the extended duration of the missions provided valuable information about the biological effects of longer-term space travel.

When the Gemini program ended in 1966, U.S. astronauts had also perfected rendezvous and docking maneuvers with other orbiting vehicles,

a skill that would be essential during the three-stage Apollo moon missions.

McDivitt and White would continue to serve America's Space Program, but White (middle, in the picture below), one of the three primary Apollo I astronauts,

would soon be tragically incinerated in a freak Cape Kennedy Launchpad flash fire on 27 January 1967.

Ironically, McDivitt (standing left, in the picture below) was an Apollo I backup crew member. In this picture, White, an Apollo I primary crew member, is seated at left, in front of McDivitt.

May all of the brave men and women who have Gone Home to their Reward, while paving the original roadwork in our Space Program, Reach Out and Touch the Face of God.

The poem, "High Flight," by John Gillespie Magee, seems to be quite appropriate right now.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air;
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew —
And while, with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

The video of same is quite moving as well. Enjoy.

Godspeed!

SOURCES: www.gizmodo.com ; www.wikipedia.org ; www.britannica.com ; www.spaceflight.de ; www.nasa.gov ; www.jsc.nasa.gov ; www.arlingtoncemetery.net ; www.apoemforeveryday.com ; www.bing.com ; www.google.com