82 a
James McDivitt or Ed White

Earth from space; desert sand dunes, Saudi Arabia

Gemini IV, June 3-7, 1965

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA S-65-34847” (NASA MSC) in blue in top margin

82 b
James McDivitt

Earth from space: desert sand dunes, Saudi Arabia

Gemini IV, June 3-7, 1965, orbit 24, 036:59:00 GET

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA S-65-34765” (NASA MSC) in blue in top margin, with technical details and caption titled “Saudi Arabia, Aden, Yemen” next to image

82 c
Edward White

Earth from space; Gulf of California, mouth of the Colorado River

Gemini IV, June 3-7, 1965, orbit 32, 050:26:00 GET

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with Technicolor Quality Control stamp, NASA KSC caption numbered “104-KSC-65PC-82” and “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso [NASA S-65-34673]
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

82 b
Schick and Van Haaften, p. 38; NASA SP-129, p. 47; Cortright, p. 146.

82 c
Schick and Van Haaften, p. 12; NASA SP-129, p. 59; Cortright, p. 145.

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Lot Essay

82 a
“In the southwestern portion of the Rub al Khali, or Empty Quarter on the Arabian Peninsula,” said Richard Underwood, chief of photography at NASA MSC, “we see the long, parallel ‘seif’ dune ridges which run unbroken for up to 400 miles and in some instances are 500 feet in height. The hollows between the ridges expose the bedrock and gravel flats. The background shows part of Arabia’s Hadramawt Plateau. This portion of Arabia is poorly explored. Photographs which show such large portions of the Earth’s surface provide information previously denied the geoscientist” (Cortright, p. 146).

82 b
“This photograph shows the Empty Quarter of southern Arabia, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia looking toward the Hadramawt Plateau. The longitudinal sand dunes in the foreground and center are clearly visible” (NASA SP-129, p. 47).

036:35:24 White: And I’m going to sleep. We’re going blunt-end- forward because the stars are setting.
036:57:11 McDivitt: We’re presently over the Arabian Peninsula at 04:13.
036:57:23 McDivitt: Taking pictures of some of the sand dunes down here.

82 c
This great photograph shows “the north end of the Gulf of California at the mouth of the Colorado River as it was seen from the Gemini IV spacecraft during orbital flight June 3-7, 1965. This picture was part of the Synoptic Terrain Photography experiments conducted during the flight to obtain high quality photographs of large land areas already mapped by aerial photography. In charge of these experiments was Dr. Paul D. Lowman Jr., NASA geologist from Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.” (alternate original NASA caption for S-65-34673).

This picture was taken during a photographic sequence at 5-second interval with a modified 70mm Hasselblad 500C camera using Eastman color film, ASA 64 at a lens setting of 250th of a second at f/11.

“River deposits of silt and underwater detail can be seen clearly. Baja California, Mexico, is on the left; northwest Sonora, Mexico, on the right. The large reddish area is the Great Sonora Desert. The white feature right of the Colorado River is a fault of the San Andreas system” (NASA SP-129, p. 59).

050:20:22 White: We’re going to run our first real S-6 now, rather S-5 (photo experiment), which will be a series of 35 photographs on the 32nd Rev, coming over the Western part of the United States. They will be done at 5-second intervals.