October 17, 2022 — Former NASA astronaut James McDivitt, who commanded the first U.S. mission to conduct a spacewalk before leading the first test flight of the Apollo moon lander in Earth orbit, has died at the age of 93.
"With heavy hearts, we mourn the recent passing of Korean War veteran, former test pilot, aeronautical engineer and NASA astronaut Jim McDivitt," the statement read. "Rest in peace."
McDivitt joined NASA in 1962 as a member of its second group of astronauts. Dubbed "The Next Nine" because they followed the "Original Seven" chosen in 1959, McDivitt's fellow classmates included Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Ed White. McDivitt and White knew each other from college, had attended test pilot school together and were soon to be named as the crew of Gemini 4.
Today known for being the first American mission to perform an extravehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk), the plan for Gemini 4 did not begin with an outing.
Up and out
"The flight was originally set up to be pretty much a medical experiment — a long-duration flight," McDivitt said during a 1999 NASA oral history interview. "We'd never had a flight longer than [34] hours and there weren't any Russian flights up till that time that were very long either, so, there was a lot of medical experimentation on it — tests and other assorted junk. And then a few scientific experiments. But mostly it was the four days, whether we were going to make it or not."
As talk of including a spacewalk picked up, the idea at first was that White would open his hatch and stick his head out as McDivitt held him down. Then on March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov exited his Voskhod 2 spacecraft and floated outside for 12 minutes and 9 seconds, claiming the title as the world's first spacewalker.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-101722a-james-mcdivitt-gemini-apollo-astronaut-obituary.html?fbclid=IwAR0fPwjEYxD2DaBq2fcEu2WSo9bUwAxPanSHy9sqG-AezCY1Z4lHeo-Xa0g(P.S. He kept his hair well groomed and didn't star in any 'unrealistic' TV mystery series.)
