I recently purchased Gemini and Apollo astronaut Ed White’s personal “Aircraft Structures” aeronautics textbook from his earliest days at NASA, along with several other personal papers, including his copies from the 31 year old’s historic first visit to NASA as part of the GEMINI “New 9”.

White was a University of Michigan Aerospace graduate, and the book reflects his Ann Arbor address.

While the textbook is a treasure-trove of White’s handwritten pencil notations and calculations, the original GEMINI Orientation papers feature his handwritten notes used in his introductory speech in which he references the New “9”, “Titan” and “rocket”.

 Just 2 ½ years later White would ride another Titan rocket into Space history as the first astronaut to perform extravehicular activity; and sadly, five short years later he would perish in the tragic Apollo 1 launch pad fire.

It’s a fascinating and rare artifact of early space history and one of the few known personal effects from White to have come to market.

I'm still working my way through the book but will be back with another round of photos in the coming days.