White's Space Maneuvers Dramatize Gemini Success

Tethered to his Gemini space ship by a thin gold cord, astronaut Edward H. White II stopped into the void yesterday and became the first American to float alone in the hostile emptiness of space.

During his 20 minutes outside the spacecraft, White took pictures, traded repartee with his partner and watched the earth slip by from Mexico to Bermuda. He used an oxygen-firing space gun to propel himself about.

White's excursion was the outstanding feature of a 62-orbit voyage which end Monday afternoon, when the capsule, containing White and James McDivitt is scheduled to parachute to earth. The sight is the longest, the highest and the most ambitious yet attempted by the United States.

The Gemini capsule failed, however, in its attempt to rendezvous with the burned-out second stage of the huge Titan II rocket which propelled it into orbit. The rendezvous was called off after McDivitt and White burned half their fuel in fruitless pursuit of the tumbling booster.

White's "space walk" lasted eight minutes longer than expected, and it doubled the time of Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who became the first human being ever to float in space on March 18.

Toward the close of White's solo, project Gemini officials back on earth pleaded with him to "get back in," but communications problems prevented their message from getting through. Finally McDivitt said, "Come on back in. We've got three and a half more days to go, buddy." White playfully refused at first, then returned to the ship.

Here is Cambridge, astronomers at the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory followed the flight closely.

One Harvard scientist, Leo Goldberg. Higgins Professor of Astronomy, was at Project Gemini headquarters in Houston yesterday observing the flight in detail. Goldberg heads the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Orbiting Solar observatory project, and is closer to the space program than, any one else at the University.

Donald H. Menzel, Director of the Harvard College Observatory, praised the astronauts' success yesterday and said the flight means that "we don't have to take our hats off to the Russians any more in these matters."

"We have a well-balanced space program," Menzel continued. "We're going ahead at a steady rate."

Menzel noted that the flight was the "most complicated" space venture yet embarked upon by the United States. He called White's exit from the capsule "a very necessary part of the experimentation" needed for further progress.

Menzel said he was not surprised at the failure of the attempted rendezvous with the Titan, booster. "That was always a doubtful Project from the very start. it's extremely difficult to get close enough to be able to link up in this way.