Medical & Science:

He Liked It Out In The Void

Ed White became the first American to walk in space in 1965.

This story appeared in the Houston Chronicle on June 4, 1963. The story is excerpted below with headlines and words reprinted as they ran then. Eleven reporters and writers and four photographers worked on the coverage.

Astronaut Ed White II took a 21-minute walk in the space today and returned reluctantly but safely to the Gemini-4 spacecraft.

Getting out of the spacecraft at 1:45 p.m. Houston time over the coast of California, White, 34, tumbled and posed for pictures for spacecraft commander James McDivitt.

Beat Soviet Record

His 21-minute venture in space beat by one minute the space walk of Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, 30, who was outside his spaceship for 20 minutes last March 18.

White and McDivitt chatted and happily kidded each other as White floated in space.

“Hey, Ed, smile,” McDivitt, 35, said to White as he aimed a camera at him. “You smeared up my windshield, you dirty dog.”

“Looks Like Houston”

White said: “I can sit up here and see the entire California coast. It looks like we’re about over Texas. As a matter of fact, it looks like Houston down there.”

At the Manned Spacecraft Center here, astronaut Virgil (Gus) Grissom was in communication with the astronauts.

Twenty minutes after White stepped into space, Grissom shouted in the microphone: The flight director says get back in!” McDivitt repeated to White: “Get back in!” White kept chattering, but it was difficult to understand him.

“Get back in,” Grissom told McDivitt.

“Come back in,” McDivitt said loudly to White.

“Okay!” White said, impatiently.

“We’ve still got three and a half more days to go buddy’” said McDivitt.

Slips Back In

At 2:06 p.m. while nearing Florida, White slipped back into the spacecraft and the hatch was closed.

White had opened the hatch and stood up in space at 1:42 p.m. four hours and 26 minutes after the delayed lift-off from Cape Kennedy.

He wore a $26,000 suit of space clothes with 22 protective layers.

He was secured to the Gemini-4 by a 25-foot umbilical cable. Besides being his link to safety, the cable carried oxygen to White and transmitted back to Earth his physical condition.

Used Space Gun

During his space walk, White maneuvered himself on occasion with his gas jet pistol.

Before the hatch was opened, the spacecraft was depressurized and the astronauts’ suits, in turn, were pressured.

Once White was back in the spacecraft, the suits were depressurized and the oxygen supply was restored to the craft.

While the walk in space was a success though delayed from the second to the third orbit, the mission to try an orbital rendezvous with the second stage booster was canceled.

The rendezvous was canceled because the booster was farther from the craft than anticipated and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration wanted to conserve fuel so the mission can last four days, as planned. Maneuvering the craft in flight causes a heavy drain on fuel.

There were two scheduled maneuverings for rendezvous purposes, to come on the first and during the fifth and sixth orbits. Both were called off by mission director Christopher C. Kraft.

On Second Orbit

Kraft’s decision was made as McDivitt, 35, and White, 34, began their second orbit, a little over an hour and a half after their delayed lift-off at 9:16 a.m. Houston time from Cape Kennedy.

McDivitt, trying for the orbital rendezvous on the first orbit, used almost half of his fuel capacity. He asked if he should keep trying or to save fuel. Kraft replied: “I think we should save the fuel. I don’t think it’s worth it.”

Gap Widening

McDivitt said the second stage booster was about 300 to 400 feet away when it first separated from Gemini-4 but he later reported the gap was widening.

“It’s probably three to four miles away and we just can’t close on it,” McDivitt said.

The spacecraft carries 400 pounds of propellant for space maneuvering, and McDivitt used about 180 pounds of it in the unsuccessful attempt to maneuver within a few feet of the rocket.

White’s plan to walk in space was not changed.

Dr. Charles Berry, the physician for the astronauts, was the one who gave White the okay for his space walk.

If the spacecraft had been able to move about 25 feet from the booster, White was to have tried to make his space walk so that he could possibly touch the booster.

McDivitt, talking to astronauts Gus Grissom in Mission Control Center here, said:

“It would have been a short flight if we had kept chasing that thing (the booster) around.”

At that time 12:27 p.m., near the end of the second orbit and over the United States, McDivitt said the Ed White became the first American astronaut to walk in space during the Gemini 4 mission in 1965. booster was 32 miles ahead of them and 5 miles below. The booster had overtaken the spacecraft because the booster is in a tighter orbit.

McDivitt, prodded by ground stations to perform such scheduled activities as taking blood pressures, mildly complained about being “rushed” and said he would do the assigned tasks “if I get a chance.”

Getting Crowded

As White was breaking out all the gear for his space walk, McDivitt remarked, “Boy, it’s getting a little crowded in here.” “I’ll bet,” Grissom replied. The lift-off from Cape Kennedy, originally scheduled for 8 a.m. Houston time, was delayed one hour and 16 minutes because of a failure in the electrical system in the gantry that serviced the Titan 11 rocket and the Gemini-4 spacecraft.

Four-Day Trip

But the problem was solved, and a billow of orange smoke at the launching pad signaled the start of the four-day, 1.6 million-mile trip for McDivitt and White.

Before the mighty Titan, packing about 12 million horsepower, pushed the astronauts and the Gemini-4 into orbit at 9:22 a.m., McDivitt exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful.” At 2 minutes and 34 seconds after launch, the first stage of the rocket cut off and the second stage ignited.

At 5 minutes and 40 seconds after launch, McDivitt yelled “Seco,” indicating to ground control that the sustainer engine cutoff stage had been reached in the second stage. Twenty seconds later the Gemini-4 was in orbit and separated from the booster.

Within seconds after the two astronauts and their spacecraft went into orbit, the Mission Control Center computers ground out the flight facts. The elliptical orbit was 100 miles above Earth at its lowest point (perigee) and 175 miles out at its highest (apogee).

Center Pleased

The perigee was right on the nose of preflight calculations, but the apogee was 10 miles lower than predicted. But the Mission Control Center was happy and announced:

“This is exactly what the book called for.”

Each orbit was taking 94 minutes.

Although McDivitt couldn’t get as close as was planned to the second stage booster, he maneuvered the spacecraft enough to change the orbit path. The new orbit has a low point of 103 miles and a high of 180 miles.

Assuming everything goes as planned, McDivitt and White will complete 62 orbits in 97 hours and 50 minutes on Monday about noon. They are scheduled to splash down in the Atlantic 400 miles southwest of Bermuda and about 600 miles east of Cape Kennedy.

For the first time during an American space flight, the multimillion dollar Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center here took command.

The countdown has stopped at 7:25 a.m., 35 minutes before the scheduled launch, but was resumed once the difficulty was fixed.

The trouble was in the electrical system that raises and lowers the gantry-erector.

Worked

Technicians solved this problem but then a hydraulic cable that moves with the gantry-erector was found to be fouled.

During part of the one hour, 16 minute delay. McDivitt and White took catnaps in their spacecraft. Astronaut Russell Schweickart, in communication with them from the control station at Cape Kennedy, had advised them to take naps and he awoke them as the countdown of 34 minutes, 59 seconds resumed.

The astronauts were awakened at 3:10 a.m. Houston time in their Merritt Island quarters seven miles from the cape.

They had a brief physical examination and then the traditional prelaunch breakfast of steak and eggs. The complete menu: Tomato juice, sirloin steak, poached eggs, strawberry jelly and coffee.

Dressed in short -sleeved sport shirts and dark trousers, McDivitt and White entered a panel truck at 4:28 a.m. and went to a ready room 300 yards from their launching pad.

They quickly suited up and entered their snow-white panel truck at 6:05 a.m. for the short trip to the pad.

As they were about to slip into the spaceship at 6:12 a.m. one technician called out “last chance” and laughter cracked the tension.

The two astronauts entered Gemini-4 eight minutes ahead of schedule.

At 6:45 a.m., McDivitt put in a long distance phone call from the spacecraft and talked for about five minutes with his wife, Pat, in Houston, White also called his wife.

Before the electrical difficulty that delayed the scheduled 8 a.m. launch time, only two minor hitches had been reported.

A tracking station off Tananarive, Malagasay, off the east coast of Africa, was out of voice communication, and a ship assigned as a tracking station off the west coast of South America was out of teletype communication.

These communications were restored before the launch, but during the first orbit, the tracking station off the east coast of Africa again lost voice communication.

Like a dotted belt girding the Earth, tracking stations, communications outposts, planes in the air and ships at sea stand ready to relay signals from the spacecraft to Houston.

NASA officials said that the Gemini-4 will be depressurized at least once more, possibly twice after White’s space walk. A hatch will be opened for White to dicsard his chest pack and umbilical cord.

The hatch may be opened a third time for the astronauts to discard trash — containers for their food and other unneeded or used items.

The equipment and trash should reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn after orbiting several times.

Exerts are stationed at tracking posts around the world to receive and analyze a constant flow of radio data of heart beat, respiration, pulse, body temperatures and other body functions.

Extensive post-flight examinations are planned.

The most important medical experiment will be to determine whether bone demineralization takes place on long space flights.