Astronaut Ed White made history on June 3, 1965 by stepping out of his spacecraft Gemini 4 to perform the very first spacewalk by an American. Suspended above the spinning Earth, White floated in the silent vacuum for over 20 minutes, tethered only by a thin umbilical cord that supplied him with oxygen. Using a small hand-held gas maneuvering gun to control his movements, he became a human satellite, proving to the world that American astronauts could survive and operate in the harsh, weightless environment of open space during the height of the space race.
White experienced a deep, almost spiritual euphoria while floating in the cosmos, describing the view and the sensation as so utterly magnificent that he openly resisted the frantic orders from mission control to get back inside. When he finally crawled back through the hatch, he noted with genuine sadness that it was the saddest moment of his life. This poignant contrast to the immense national pride his stroll generated serves as a haunting prelude to his tragic death on the launchpad in 1967.
