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

320
First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
any message for us?” because I knew it was time to get back in. And they just said,
“Yes. Get back in!”
White
Right. I remember hearing Gus say, “Yes, get him back in.”
McDivitt
This is what all the fuss was about. They might have been transmitting to us to get
back in but we were on VOX and couldn’t hear a thing.
White
I did a few things after this time that I wasn’t doing to deliberately stay out. But
I was deliberately trying to do one last thing. I was trying to get that last picture.
And this was one of a couple of times that I kicked off the space craft really hard,
to get out to the end of the tether. And I wasn’t successful in getting the position
so that I could get a picture. I felt this was the one part of the mission that I
hadn’t completed. Everything else was successful and I wanted very badly to get
that picture from outside. I spent a moment or so doing this. This was also the
period of time in which I called down to Jim and said, “I’m actually walking on
top of the spacecraft.” I took the tether held onto it, and used it as a device to pull
me down to the space craft. I walked from about where the angle starts to break
between the nose section and the cabin section. I walked from there probably
about two-thirds of the way up the cabin, and it was really quite strenuous. Could
you see me walking along, Jim?
McDivitt
No, I couldn’t see but I could feel the thumping on the outside.
White
That’s when I got to laughing so hard. This was when Jim was saying to come in.
[4-42]
McDivitt
Yes, I think this is when I got a little stern and said, “Get in here!”
White
When I was walking on the top and was laughing, Jim probably didn’t think I
thought he was serious. But it was a very funny sensation. Now as far as delaying,
there were certain things that I had to do before I came in. And there wasn’t
anything in the world that was going to hurry me up in doing them. We had just
agreed that we’d do things in a slow manner and this is the way we’d do it.
McDivitt
Let me talk about the time here. It is implied in the papers that Ed didn’t really
want to come back in, and didn’t. I think one of the things is that we didn’t hear.
We didn’t have any transmissions from the ground after he stepped outside until
I went off VOX at 15:40. They said, “Come back in!”, and I told him to come back
in. I think that he probably delayed about a minute or 2 minutes.