Spacewalkin'
50 years ago Ed White became the first American to step into space.
Chris Wild
1965-2015
It's half a century since Ed White became the first American to step into space, in 1965. Now an almost routine part of any space mission, the EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), or "spacewalk" was once a hazardous procedure.During the 1950s and 1960s, the USSR scored a few early firsts in the Space Race: first satellite (Sputnik 1); first man in space (Yuri Gagarin); and first spacewalk (Alexei Leonov on March 8, 1965). Leonov encountered many difficulties during his own spacewalk. He could only maneuver by pulling on the umbilical cord that tethered him to the spacecraft, and his suit over-inflated in the vacuum of space. Leonov had to bleed some oxygen from the suit to be able to get back in the hatch. The extent of these problems was not revealed until after the end of the Cold War.
NASA scheduled its first spacewalk to take place during the Gemini 4 mission. On June 3, 1965, Ed White left the Gemini spacecraft and, with the aid of a Hand-Held Self Manoeuvring Unit (HHSMU), or "zip gun," White was able to move 15 feet (5 meters) from the craft.Communication problems meant White had to be actively ordered to re-enter the spacecraft. Opening and closing the hatch was problematic, and a planned dump into space of White's used spacewalk equipment was abandoned.Several more spacewalks were performed during the Gemini missions, but the astronauts tired quickly and experienced overheating. It was Buzz Aldrin who first overcame these problems, working for just over two hours outside Gemini 12. Aldrin's experiences as a scuba diver inspired NASA's move to training astronauts for spacewalks in large water tanks to simulate the weightlessness of space.
I’m coming back in... <br>and it’s the saddest moment of my life. - Ed White, Jun. 3, 1965
With the advent of the space shuttle, spacewalks became routine. In 1983, NASA astronauts began using the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), a self-contained life support device. The Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), also known as Canadarm, was developed by Canada and delivered to NASA in 1981, the first of five such arms. This machine could be used as an anchor for astronauts during spacewalks.On Feb. 7, 1984, the Manned Manoeuvring Unit (MMU) was deployed. For the first time, this allowed an astronaut to work untethered. Using the MMU, Bruce McCandless became the first astronaut to fly free in space, moving 320 feet (98 meters) away from the shuttle.In 2001, Susan Helms and James Voss set the record for the spacewalk with the longest duration, at eight hours and 56 minutes.
