NASA GEMINI IV Mission Photograph of astronaut Ed White floating in space over Texas, during the first American EVA. Vintage chromogenic print on "A Kodak Paper", numbered NASA in red (S-65-30428) in the upper margin. Printed NASA-MSC legend on back. Dated June 3, 1965. 25.5 x 20.5 cm with margins. Marginal handling marks. Scratches. Gemini Titan IV (GT-4) was the second crewed mission of the Gemini program. James McDivitt and Edward White successfully completed the 4-day, 62-orbit flight between June 3 and 7, 1965. Only a few weeks before liftoff, the mission program was revised to include the first spacewalk (EVA - Extra-Vehicular Activity) by an American astronaut; a direct response to the success of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who performed the first EVA on March 18, 1965. On this occasion, White remained outside the spacecraft for 23 minutes. Connected to the capsule by a 7.6 m oxygen cord, Ed White used a propulsion gun to move around the capsule, to which a camera was also attached. The reflection of the capsule can be seen on the protective visor of his helmet, gold-plated to protect him from the sun's rays. Mc Divitt, from his commanding seat in the Gemini capsule, took 16 photos of Ed White floating in space with a Hasselblad 500C 70mm. http://tothemoon.ser.asu.edu/gallery/Gemini/4/Hasselblad%20500C%2070%20mm (Images 32 to 39, and 45 to 52). "I took most of these photographs without being able to see what I was shooting at. The Gemini spacecraft was quite small, and I have a very tall sitting height. My head was against the canopy when I wasn't pressurized and when I was pressurized I was really crunched up in there and I couldn't move around much. So I'd take the camera down and look to see where Ed was, and then put the camera up, point in that direction and take the picture. I'm a good pistol and rifle shot. Maybe that helped." James McDivitt (The View From Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962-72", Schick and Van Haafte,, p. 33). The spacewalk was also filmed by two 16mm cameras: one installed by White on the outside of the spacecraft before its spacewalk, and another at McDivitt's porthole. The photographs taken by McDivitt are the first ever of a man floating in space. The world's first spacewalk by Alexei Leonov (on Voskhod 2, three months before Ed White) was recorded by a movie camera, from which a few grainy images were taken, but no still photographs were taken. This series of photographs has become iconic in the collective imagination of space exploration - not least for their aesthetic qualities. Excerpts from "The View From Space: American Astronaut Photography 1962-72", Schick and Van Haaften : "Mc Divitt's pictures of Ed White floating in space created a sensation and remain among the most compelling images produced in space. Mc Divitt portrayed the expansive freedom of man in space so lyrically that it is easy to understand why Ed White had to be coaxed back into the confinement of his spacecraft. (Ed White's death two years later in the fatal Apollo 1 fire has given the photographs added poignancy)." (p32) "Within days of splashdown, McDivitt's pictures appeared in newspapers and magazines around the world, marking a turning point in the role photography played in the space program and in the popular conception of manned space exploration." (p. 13) Bibliography: Life magazine, June 18, 1965, cover Life International, December 20, 1965 "EVENT OF THE YEAR Astronaut White Walks in Space". National Geographic, September 1965, p.444-445.