Closing the hatch will be a crucial milestone From CNN's Jackie Wattles Astronaut Ed White floats in the zero gravity of space outside the Gemini IV spacecraft, on June 3, 1965. NASA Apart from surviving the harsh vacuum of outer space protected only by pressurized suits covering the astronauts’ bodies, the crew has to worry about a key final milestone to conclude today’s spacewalk: Closing the spacecraft’s hatch. This could be one of the most difficult parts of the mission. Differences in pressure inside and outside the Crew Dragon capsule can make shutting that door very difficult. Crews on some of NASA’s earliest missions had such troubles. During the Gemini program, some missions to orbit were carried out that were somewhat similar to Polaris Dawn, with astronauts exiting their capsules to perform spacewalks before hunkering back inside. During 1965’s historic Gemini 4 mission, which saw NASA astronaut Ed White become the first American to walk in space, for example, the crew had trouble closing the hatch afterward. It was “probably the hairiest thing that happened to me in space,” said White’s Gemini 4 flight partner, astronaut James McDivitt, in 1999. “When we went to close the hatch, it wouldn’t close. It wouldn’t lock. And so, in the dark I was trying to fiddle around over on the side where I couldn’t see anything, trying to get my glove down in this little slot to push the gears together. And finally, we got that done and got it latched.” “[If you can’t get the hatch closed] you’re dead. You’re dead,” McDivitt said. “You’ll either burn up—well, you’ll burn up on the way down for sure. And the spacecraft would sink (into the ocean) as soon as it hit, too, because the hatch would be open.” Link Copied!