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And Out He Went. As Gemini 4 went into its third orbit, White donned his EVA equipment. He snapped on an ex tra face plate which was tinted gold to deflect the sun's broiling rays, hooked up his gold-coated umbilical cord — a 24.3-ft. tether connecting him to the spaceship, providing him with oxygen and a spacewalk talk system. Since he could not look down with his hel met on, White used a mirror to strap on to his chest a shoebox-sized pack weighing 8.3 Ibs. and containing a twelve-minute supply of emergency OXygen. If his main oxygen source failed, Spaceman White could flip a switch on the box, haul himself back into the spacecraft, close the hatch and hurriedly repressurize the cabin before his portable supply ran out.
Unlike the ship used in Cosmonaut Leonov's space walk, Gemini 4 did not have a separate exit compartment that could be depressurized while the cabin remained normal. Thus, before Mc-Divitt and White could crack the hatch, they had to drop the pressure inside from the normal 5.1 Ibs. per sq. in. to about 3 Ibs. per sq. in.
Now Gemini 4 was 4 hr. 43 min. off the launching pad. It was flying blunt end forward and upside down in relation to the earth—although this made no difference to the astronauts in their weightless condition.
Slowly, White began cranking a ratchet handle to loosen a set of prongs around the hatch opening. The hatch was free. It raised to a 50° angle, and
White poked his head through the opening. McDivitt asked Director Kraft for a go-ahead. Replied Kraft: "Tell him we're ready for him to go whenever he is." Out went White.
Gripping his jet gun, he slipped alone into space over the Pacific, just east of Hawaii. On the part of his space suit facing the sun, the temperature was an infernal 250° above zero; on the shady side, 150° below zero. White punched the trigger on his hand jet, squirted himself under the capsule, then back to the top. His movements jostled the ship. McDivitt, carefully working the controls inside Gemini 4 to maintain a stable base for White, said into his microphone to Gemini 3 Astronaut Virgil ("Gus") Grissom at Houston control center: "One thing about it, when Ed gets out there and starts whipping around, it sure makes the spacecraft tough to control."
Along the Life Line. By the time he had been out of the capsule for three minutes, White had exhausted his hand gun's fuel propellant. This was neither alarming nor surprising, since NASA officials had purposely kept the thrust of the gadget low and the fuel supply at a minimum for this first experimental trip. From then on, White maneuvered by twisting his torso and hand-pulling himself back and forth along his life line.
As Gemini 4 streaked toward the West Coast of the U.S., White reported: "I'm looking right down, and it looks like we're coming on the coast of California. There is absolutely no disorientation association."
White had a 35-mm. camera attached to his hand jet, and McDivitt had a 16-mm. movie camera attached to the spacecraft interior and fixed to peer out through the window. Grissom reminded them from the ground: "Take some pictures." McDivitt said to