Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 309
McDivitt
I think you and I both knew how you were going to do, and everybody else was
planning for us how we were going to do it, but without any real experience in it.
People who didn’t know a lot about it were planning this sequence, and it wasn’t
the way it should have been.
White
I couldn’t have done that. I didn’t have three hands. I couldn’t hold the gun and
put a finger in the RCS nozzle, and hold the handle at the same time. I thought it
would be more desirable anyhow to actually depart the spacecraft with no velocity,
other than that imparted by the gun. This is ex actly what I did. I thought that I was
free of the spacecraft, and I fired the gun. I realized that my legs were still [4-30]
dragging a little bit on the side of the seat, so I pulled myself out until I could see
that my feet were actually out of the spacecraft. I think you called me and said I
was out of the spacecraft.
McDivitt
I called and told you that you were clear. That’s right.
White
And that’s when I started firing the gun and actually pro pelled myself under the
influence of the gun. I don’t believe I gave any input into the spacecraft when I
left that time, did I?
McDivitt
No, you left as clean as a whistle.
White
Later on, I gave you some pretty big ones.
McDivitt
You were really bouncing around then.
White
Now at the time, I left entirely under the influence of the gun, and it carried me
right straight out, a little higher than I wanted to go. I wanted to maneuver over to
your side, but I maneuvered out of the spacecraft and forward and per haps a little
higher than I wanted to be. When I got out to what I estimate as probably one-half
or two-thirds the way out on the tether, I was out past the nose of the spacecraft.
I started a yaw to the left with the gun and that’s when I reported that the gun
really worked quite well. I believe that I stopped that yaw, and I started translating
back to ward the spacecraft. It was either on this translation or the one following
this that I got into a bit of a combination of pitch, roll, and yaw together. I felt
that I could have corrected it, but I knew that it would have taken more fuel than
I had wanted to expend with the gun, so I gave a little tug on the tether and came
back in. This is the first ex perience I had with tether dynamics and it brought
me right back to where I did not want to be. It brought me right back on the top
of the spacecraft, by the adapter section. Jim was calling me and said that I was
out of his sight. I told him that I was all right, that I was up above the spacecraft,
I looked down and I could see attitude thrusters firing, little white puffs out of