Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

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197
White
McDivitt
an optical barrier, practically, between you and
the stars.
The difference between the day sky
up in orbit and the day sky here is, as far as
we were concerned, was practically nil, because those
just weren ' t any stars visible. It didn't have
anything to do with the atmosphere; it just had
to do with t he optics of our window and the
nose being shiny.
We couldn't see any more stars
in orbit than we could here in the daylight, but
it wasn' t because of the atmosphere up there.
It was just because we had that coating on the
window that reflected the sunlight,and because
the nose reflected sunlight into the windows, and
t he same thing with the horizon or the ground .
When it was lit up, it reflected light into the
windows.
Actually, you had to get that window
in total darkness almost before you were able to
see anything.
Pull the shades.
Pull the shades.
And then when you did that , you
were able to see some stars.
On a few occasions
when I got the spacecraft into this particular
attitude, I was able to see some stars in the