NASA - Lot 6

NASA GEMINI IV mission Astronaut Ed White poses for the first spaceflight portrait taken by mission commander Jim McDivitt. Vintage chromogenic print on "A Kodak Paper", numbered NASA (S-65-30549) in red in the upper margin. Printed caption NASA-MSC on back. Dated June 3, 1965. 25.5 x 20.5 cm with margins. Handling marks in margins and marks at lower left. 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. This photograph was taken after Ed White's spacewalk. McDivitt used the Zeiss Contarex 35mm camera loaded with color film specifically for space shots that White had used to take photographs from outside the spacecraft.