APOD: Into the Void (2015 Jun 06)

[APOD Robot]

Into the Void

Explanation: Fifty years ago, on June 3, 1965, Edward White stepped out of the orbiting Gemini 4 spacecraft to become the first US astronaut to walk in space. White is captured in this photo taken by mission commander James McDivit from inside the capsule as White's spacewalk began over the Pacific Ocean on Gemini 4's third orbit. Planet Earth, spacecraft, and tether are reflected in White's gold tinted helmet visor. A gas powered manuevering gun is held in his right hand. Though the gun ran out of gas after only 3 minutes, he continued to manuever by twisting his body and pulling on the tether for the remainder of the 23 minute long Extra Vehicular Activity. White later described his historic spacewalk as the most comfortable part of the mission, and said the order to end it was the "saddest moment" of his life.

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[Boomer12k]

"Houston to Jupiter 16, we have an object approaching from astern....we have an object closing in from astern, Jupiter 16, do you read????"

At least the Gemini 4 space walk did not end like that one did....

Time keeps Marching along....

:---[===] *

[tomatoherd]

Is there not also a reflection of a rising or setting moon in his visor (the upper crescent)???

[Craine]

The thing I personally like to do with photos like this is figure out where they are over the planet.
My guess here is that they are over Mexico and you can see the Gulf of California and the some of the Baja California behind him.

[Craine]

Is there not also a reflection of a rising or setting moon in his visor (the upper crescent)???

Considering that that is where the tether seems to be going, I am going to guess that is the Gemini capsule.

[ta152h0]

Glory Days and glued to the black and white

[Animal of Stone]

Thanks again for the wonderful shot. How advanced and yet so fragile.

[DavidLeodis]

It is a superb photo and especially so because it was taken 50 years ago. I appreciate that cameras were good then, but if I had not known and was asked to guess I would have said the photo was taken in recent years. It even looks like Edward is holding a stick with a camera to take a selfie!

It is very sad that on January 27 1967 Edward; Virgil Grissom and Roger Chaffee were all killed when a flash fire occurred during a launch pad test.

[Chris Peterson]

It is a superb photo and especially so because it was taken 50 years ago. I appreciate that cameras were good then, but if I had not known and was asked to guess I would have said the photo was taken in recent years.

Interesting comment. My first thought on seeing it was how much technology has improved. It was immediately obvious to me that this was made on film, with all of its disadvantages compared with electronic sensors: low sensitivity (hence some motion blur because of the longer exposure time), low dynamic range (hence saturated bright areas and low detail in shadowed areas), and low resolution in areas of low contrast.

It's a great picture for its content, but it would have been of much higher technical quality if taken with a modern DSLR such as the ISS astronauts use today.

[geckzilla]

Some of the comments over at Facebook were similarly surprised at how good the quality of the photo was. I think it is because affordable consumer products and televisions produced the most memorable imagery. Not everyone had a 70mm Hasselblad. But the colors also do not look "old" and I think that is due to some digital color correction.

[ta152h0]

Echtachome slide film was good. or is it Ektachome ?

[DCStone]

What impressed me is that you can quite clearly see the watch strapped on the outside of his space-suit (a la the scene of the astronauts prepping for launch in Apollo 13). Does anyone know how well it held up to exposure to space like that?